


Midnight at Skyhold

by LadyDanya



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anonymous Sex, Blindfolds, Cullenlingus, Explicit Consent, F/M, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:47:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 57,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3964918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyDanya/pseuds/LadyDanya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen wants the Inquisitor, but thinks she's out of his league.  Then he discovers that she <i>really</i> likes one of Varric's romance serials featuring a blindfold and an anonymous lover who aims to please.  Surely there's no harm in making her fantasies come to life....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/14591.html?thread=55081727#t55081727) perfect k!meme prompt:  
> Every night, a man sneaks into Trevelyan's quarters. He blindfolds her, and then they talk about their day. This leads to him pleasuring her, and then they're eventually making love regularly. Trevelyan tries really hard to find out who it is, but she can't figure anything out from the few clues she can glean from him (he's really thorough with hiding his identity), and doesn't want to tell anyone about what's happening because she wants it to be something just for her.
> 
> (Please note: Consent is sexy, folks. Contrary to the wording of the prompt that started it all, it has been absolutely crucial to me to establish explicit consent, early and often. The blindfold finds its way to the Inquisitor's hand, rather than Cullen's; it is and always will be _her_ decision, _every time,_ whether or not to put it on and participate.)

Cullen closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, drawing in a deep breath. He's spent the day at his desk poring over supply manifests and requisition orders, and the combination of dim lighting and endless columns of tiny print has kindled a headache behind his eyes that refuses to go away. When he realizes he can still see the lines of numbers scrolling past his vision even with his eyes closed, as if the figures are permanently embossed on the backs of his eyelids, he knows it's time once and for all to get away from his desk.

It isn't until he steps outside and sees the last tangerine throes of sunset beyond the ramparts that he realizes how many hours he's lost, engrossed in repetitive administrative work. Skyhold's courtyard lies in deep inkspill pools of purple shadow, swirled with the softer lilac drifts of a recent snowfall. He shivers as he pauses on the landing, considering. He really should head down to the kitchens for a quick bite to eat, then get to bed so he can be up at dawn attacking another stack of paperwork; he's got a lot of work to get out of the way before his upcoming - and, if you ask him, completely unnecessary - trip to Val Royeaux.

But then the door to the tavern opens, across the darkened courtyard, and a flood of golden light spills out onto the snow. He catches a few bright bars of lute music on the wind, a tumble of chatter and laughter, before the door swings closed and the courtyard goes dark and silent again, and he realizes, with a sudden aching clarity, that something fundamental is lacking. He cannot stomach yet another late dinner of leftovers scraped from the bottom of a cold stewpot, yet another night spent in the solitude of his tower with nothing but the whistle of wind twining through the broken boards to break the silence. He's not one for taverns, crowds, or recreation in general, but it's cold, and he's lonely; when the door opens again and another arc of golden light fans across the snow, he's drawn to it with the inevitability of a moth to a flame.

He pauses in the doorway to look around, knocking the snow from his boots. He's never set foot inside the Herald's Rest before; he's been invited a few times, by various members of the Inquisitor's inner circle, for ale and cards at the end of long meetings. But they're always the sort of invitation that sparks his deepest insecurities, the kind where he's never really sure if he's truly wanted or if he's being invited because everyone is and there's no way to politely single him out for exclusion; he always declines. Besides, it isn't fair to his soldiers if he chooses to frequent the one place they have to blow off steam; the Herald's Rest isn't very _restful_ for anybody if their commanding officer is there, looking over their shoulders. If he drinks, he drinks alone, in his rooms.

He takes it all in now, and he's pleasantly surprised at how cozy it is - rustic, too, to be sure, with straw spread on the coarse plank floor and furniture made from lumber so rough-hewn he's getting splinters just from looking at it - but warm and inviting, with the cheerful roar of the fire in the ground-floor hearth suffusing everything with a radiant glow. He's not sure whether it's the snow and the cold sending more people than usual in search of ale to warm their bellies or if it's always this crowded, but every table is taken, and he stands nonplussed for a moment, scanning the crowd for friendly faces to impose upon, wondering where to go.

He spots the Inquisitor and Cassandra sitting together at the bar, their heads together as they lean over something that's spread out on the countertop, their shoulders deliberately angled to keep the object of their attention blocked from view. They're giggling and blushing like schoolgirls as they whisper together, cheek to cheek. The Inquisitor throws her head back and lets out a full-throated laugh at something Cassandra says, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, revealing the elegant line of her long, slender neck, and Cullen feels his heart stutter and his breath catch in his chest.

She's absolutely breathtaking, her cheeks dewy and flushed a soft, becoming pink from drink and whatever forbidden thing they're giggling about. Evelyn Trevelyan has been the secret object of his unworthy affections for as long as he can remember, and for a single moment Cullen is gripped by the insane desire to cross the room and claim her parted lips, consequences be damned; to suck that full lower lip between his own and bite down on it, to make her squirm and mewl beneath him as he sinks his hands into her mahogany hair and drags her down and....

He catches himself abruptly and reels himself back from the brink of madness. He's blushing now too, and it's probably not nearly as fetching on him as it is on her; worse, he doesn't have the excuse of the drink to explain it away as she does. Maker, but he is a fool. To think for even a _second_ that someone like him could ever be worthy of someone like her, that she could ever be anything more to him than a guilty fantasy spilled on his sheets on sleepless nights....

He curses the impulse that's brought him into the tavern; he wants to turn and flee, but Evelyn's blue eyes have turned to him. She's seen him - no, worse, she's caught him _staring at her_ \- and now there's no way out but through. He forces a smile to his face and approaches the bar. "Lady Trevelyan. Seeker Pentaghast." He nods cordially to them each in turn. More words should follow, but his mind has frozen, gears ground to a halt under a torque of embarrassment and shame.

Fortunately Evelyn is too caught up in her own embarrassment to notice; both women are. Cassandra is glowing pinker than both Evelyn and Cullen put together; she sweeps something off the table - a book - and stuffs it guiltily into her knapsack. Cullen catches only the briefest glimpse of the cover, but what he sees looks suspiciously like one of Varric's romances, the cover art an image of a flowing, voluminous gown that still somehow doesn't manage to adequately cover the heaving bosom that strains against it.

"We were ... uh ... ah," Evelyn stammers tipsily, and Cullen is struck once again at how _beautiful_ she is, how she glows in the firelight, how her lips part around panting breaths. It strikes him that she has probably been harboring indecent thoughts of her own, based on whatever she and Cassandra were just reading; he wonders what lucky bastard will keep her company in her fantasies, when she touches herself later in the silence of her room. It kills him that he will never be worthy of her, not even to occupy her dreams.

"Leaving," Cassandra says briskly. "We were _leaving_." The Seeker drags the Inquisitor from the bar, and Evelyn shrugs apologetically to Cullen as they go.

Cullen stares after them; he wants to flee the tavern but can't, now, for fear of running into them again on the way out. Instead he takes Evelyn's newly vacated stool, and signals to Cabot to bring him a much-needed ale.

"You okay there, Curly?" Cullen turns in time to see Varric climb onto Cassandra's empty seat beside him. The dwarf sounds amused, self-indulgent, in a way that makes Cullen's eyebrow arch suspiciously.

"I don't suppose you had something to do with that," Cullen says churlishly.

"Me?" Varric says, mock-hurt. "You think that I would dare corrupt the innocence of our dear lady Seeker? You wound me."

Cullen feels a half-smile tug at the corner of his mouth, despite himself. "Really? Because that book sure looked like a copy of _Swords and Shields_ to me."

Varric snorts. "Now you really _do_ wound me, Curly. I don't write that tripe anymore."

"No?" Cullen asks in disbelief.

"Nah," Varric says flippantly. "Too much plot, not _nearly_ enough porn." He pauses as Cabot comes over to deliver two mugs of ale, then goes on: "That was an advance copy of my _new_ serial, _Midnight at Starkeep_. The lusty adventures of the Queen and her dashing Man of Mystery. This one's pretty much _all_ sex."

Cullen has just taken a long draw from his mug; he coughs into his glove, sputtering. "Burns as it goes down, doesn't it?" Varric says sympathetically. "Yeah, that's the problem with living on the side of a mountain; hard to get decent liquor up here in any quantity."

"Maker's breath!" Cullen breathes hoarsely. He's not such a prude that he doesn't know what Varric's romances entail, but hearing it described in such stark terms is mortifying. "Do people actually _read_ things like that?" He thinks again of Evelyn, blushing prettily and giggling as she and Cassandra pored over the accounts of the fictional queen's _lusty adventures_ , and flushes red clear to the tips of his ears.

"Why? You interested?" Varric asks. "I've got another copy--"

"Maker, _no!_ " Cullen protests.

"I'll bring it by your office before I turn in tonight," Varric presses. "I think you'll enjoy it."

"Please don't," Cullen grits through his teeth.

But Varric, seeing his embarrassment, has taken to the idea like a dog with a bone. He's too much of a peacekeeper to have his fun at another's expense, at least overtly, so when he pushes on he couches it in the idea of _educating_ the dear Commander. “You know, come to think of it, it might do you some good to read this book," he says casually. “Get all your blushing and stammering out of your system in the privacy of your own room, so that someday you might have a chance of being in an _actual_ woman’s presence without turning as red as a nug's backside.”

Cullen chokes again, spitting a mouthful of ale back into his mug. “Maker’s breath!” he sputters. He feels himself turning flaming red _now_ , and deliberately forces his eyes straight ahead, certain that if he chances a glance around him he’ll find the entire room staring. The headache that has taken up residence behind his eyes digs itself in deeper and throbs. “Surely you’re not serious.”

“Hey, I have no qualms about corrupting _your_ innocence, Curly,” Varric says wryly. “Besides … it can’t be all _that_ bad.” He smiles shrewdly, zeroing in on Cullen’s weakness with the same pinpoint precision he employs with his crossbow. “ _Evelyn_ sure seemed to be enjoying it.”

Cullen freezes, his ale mug suspended halfway to his mouth. Images of the Inquisitor flood his mind, her cheeks flushed pink behind the heavy fall of her dark hair, lush lips parted in breathy giggles as she and Cassandra read that accursed book. He forces himself to nonchalantly take a sip of his drink and lower it to the table, ignoring the tremor in his hand. “ _Fine_ ," he growls.

Varric leaves him with a hearty clap on the back, and Cullen sits alone, rooted to his stool in a paralysis of embarrassment. Coming to the tavern has been a monumental mistake, but now he can’t quite bring himself to walk out, so he orders another ale and nurses his way through it, and then another. On his empty stomach, the alcohol is quick to go to his head; when he does finally muster the nerve to weave his way out through the crowded tavern, he finds his footsteps unsteady.

When he gets back to his office, Varric’s other copy of _Midnight at Starkeep_ waits on his desk. He swears softly, cursing the dwarf, his publisher, the readers who encourage his nonsense, and the inventor of the printing press all in one breath.

Well, just because Varric insists on loaning him the book doesn’t mean he has to actually _read_ it. He’ll keep it for a few days, then return it to the dwarf with stiff, formal thanks, and hopefully the matter will be forgotten.

In the meantime, though, the idea of simply having the book around sets his teeth on edge. He certainly can’t leave it downstairs in his office, where anyone could walk in and find it. The thought of a bored recruit nosing through his bookshelves during a meeting and finding _that_ among his things … Cullen shudders. No; the book is _definitely_ coming upstairs with him.

Yet upstairs poses problems too; if it’s found there, it would be strongly implied that he’s actually _reading_ the Void-cursed thing. He pauses at the top of the ladder, looking around for a secure hiding place, before finally hefting the edge of his mattress and wedging the book between the down-filled matting and the frame.

He undresses and climbs into bed, tossing and turning in a vain attempt to get comfortable. He wants to simply drift off and let hazy, ale-induced sleep erase this night from existence, but his head is throbbing hard now, and everything is starting to sharpen again as the alcohol wears off. He sighs and balls his fists in the sheets, feeling his own jagged edges just as keenly as the hard lines of the book that pokes into his hip from beneath the mattress.

The entire evening has been an unmitigated disaster. He should have stayed in his office, reading reports into the small hours of the morning like he normally does, instead of trying to fool himself into forgetting for an evening that he is fundamentally defective, so closed off after years of avoiding people and eschewing relationships that he believes himself to be beyond repair.

The Inquisitor comes to his mind again; he hears her throaty laugh and sees her blush, at once both titillated and embarrassed by the words on Varric's page. She is radiant, beautiful ... _genuine_. He wants her, covets her, lies awake at night and aches for her, and yet is kept from her by the same soul-deep brokenness that holds him apart from the rest of the world. He hates himself for not being able to carry out a single conversation with her without turning into a blushing, stammering mess; but perhaps it doesn't matter. It's not like she'd ever want him back; even if he wasn't broken, she'd still deserve far better than a washed-up ex-Templar with a lyrium addiction.

And yet he torments himself night after night with thoughts of what he knows he cannot have. His mind travels across Skyhold's snow-blown courtyard and down the darkened length of the silent main hall, the floor painted in shards of jagged color from the moonlight spilling through the stained glass windows across his bare feet. He slips up the staircase to the bedroom he's never seen in waking light, and finds her lying in her bed, naked beneath the thin sheet that molds to her figure, accenting and elongating her curves. He traces the elegant lines of her body with phantom hands as he imagines stroking her awake in the starlit calm of midnight.

Beyond that, his fantasies are always rather vague; he doesn't know enough to be able to fully guess what she might like, what might make her gasp and shudder beneath his roving hands and questing mouth.... Sighing, he rolls over and feels the corner of Varric's book digging into his side; he stills, his heart pounding as he pictures her again, giggling and pink. Maybe he _does_ know; maybe he has an unexpected window into what turns her on, what makes her blush.

Maybe all the curses he directed at Varric under his breath earlier were misplaced after all.

He bolts out of bed and lights a candle for his bedside table, then kneels to fish the book out from under his mattress. His hands shake as he spreads the book open on his pillow, a flutter of nervous excitement rippling through him at the thought that somewhere, on the other side of Skyhold, she could be clutching the other copy of Varric's book and doing the exact same thing.

He turns to the first page of _Midnight at Starkeep_ , and begins to read.


	2. Chapter 2

Evelyn stands at her window and undresses slowly, looking out across the snow-blown mountains as her fingers pluck at the long row of buttons on her tunic. Pale light falls onto the newly fallen snow like a spill of moondust, shimmering and pearlescent, and she sighs, slightly wistful, as she peels her garments off. She's just the slightest bit unsteady on her feet as she moves across the room, arching her back as her tunic slides down her arms and pools on the floor.

The ale is wearing off, and as her buzz fades she feels a tug of guilt for her behavior earlier. It’s rare for her to take an evening off of work, and rarer still for her to drink to excess. She’s expected to be above such things, as pure and honorable as the Prophet herself. The Herald of Andraste, loud and tipsy in the tavern? A shocking disgrace.

That same Herald, loud and tipsy in the tavern while _looking at pornography?_ Completely and utterly scandalous.

She sighs. She’d accepted the mantle of Inquisitor freely, she bears it willingly, but there are times when it wears on her like an too-big suit of armor. It looks shining and grand on the outside, but beneath it she is sore and aching, rubbed raw by the ill-fitting edges. It had been nice to remember, at least for the duration of a few pints, that she is more than just the Inquisitor; beneath the titles and trappings of office it’s too easy to forget that she is a normal woman, or even a woman at all.

Besides, it could have been much worse; at least it had only been Commander Cullen who caught her. He seems to have such a low opinion of her; it could hardly have made him think any less of her than he already does. She sees him as he was in the tavern, standing stiffly with his hands clenching into fists at his sides, a red flush of anger creeping up his neck and cheeks; she hears the strain in his voice as he extends clipped greetings, clearly shocked to near-speechlessness by her behavior.

She’s used to his disapproval by now; he’s always been so stiff and condescending, in the way he refuses to meet her eye or engage her in conversation beyond what is necessary for their work. She’d been wounded by it at first, but she’s well past the point of being bothered by his reproachfulness now; leading her armies doesn’t require him to _like_ her. At least she and Cassandra hadn’t been found out by someone who actually had respect for her left to lose, even if it _had_ been embarrassing.

She wriggles her way out of her pants and kicks them across the floor. There’s something freeing about walking around her quarters naked before the drapeless windows, the panes reflecting flashes of firelit skin like the glinting gems in a kaleidoscope. With her days as highly regimented as they are, filled with endless work and stress and the ruthless, unmitigated pressure of the world’s expectations, small acts of freedom like this one become as necessary as breathing, a reminder that who she is goes deeper than the beige Inquisition-issued leathers she wears.

She pads over to her desk, where _Midnight at Starkeep_ sits waiting atop a stack of neglected paperwork. She’d figured the only way she’d be able to read the book tonight would be to pry it out of Cassandra’s cold dead hands, but her friend had been so embarrassed at being caught that she surrendered the book without comment as they fled the tavern. She props it on her pillow as she slides into bed, the Orlesian sheets like a caress against her bare skin as she settles in on her belly, wriggling just to feel the drag of satin against her legs and the weight of the down coverlet settle like a lover's hand upon the small of her back.

Varric had not been teasing when he claimed this work was his smuttiest yet; there are but a few scant pages of exposition to introduce the reader to the protagonist, the queen of Starkeep. Evelyn arches an eyebrow at the description of the queen - hair the color of red cedar, a strong, elegant body with long sleek lines, skin that glows in the firelight like oiled brass.... She sounds suspiciously familiar, a little too like Bianca to be mere coincidence - the crossbow, of course, not the dwarf.

The fictional Starkeep sounds familiar too, a stone citadel on an isolated mountainside. Varric paints a picture of a lavish palace that is beautiful but achingly lonely, its young queen unable to trust anyone amid a court full of danger and conspiracy. She has nobody to turn to as the pressures of leadership grow, until she's nearly breaking under the strain of stressful days and comfortless nights....

Then the box arrives.

Evelyn feels her breath catch in her throat, already fully caught up in the intrigue of the story as the queen returns to her chambers and finds that, somehow, someone has managed to slip past her guards to leave a box on her pillow. Her heart pounds along with the queen's as she slips the box open and discovers three items within - a single rose, a black silk blindfold, and a card inscribed with a single word: the time of a proposed tryst.

By page twelve the queen is naked and blindfolded, pinned to her bed by a lover whose identity she does not know and whose face she cannot see. Evelyn reads propped up on her elbows, peering between her fingers at the pages laid out on her pillow, utterly mortified at how aroused she is by Varric's words; she's not quite sure she'll be able to look the dwarf in the eye in the morning.

Mortified; yet aching, too, with a yearning that has anchored itself to her very core. She grinds her hips softly into the mattress as she turns the pages by the guttering of candlelight, her breathing growing quick and erratic as the story spins on and illicit touches in the dark of the queen's chambers become more, and then more still. It has been a long time, far too long, since Evelyn has known the touch of another's hand, and she feels the lack of it now, gasping and aching in the lonely silence of her quarters.

It's a physical burn, as things turn heated on the pages, but it's also far more than that; she finds herself longing for something that does not - _cannot_ \- exist in a world beyond ink and paper. She yearns for the romance that the queen has found, more than the sex; this careful and considerate lover who values her the way a woman deserves to be valued. The mysterious paramour refuses to call his queen by name or defile her body by touching with bare hands as he lavishes attention upon her, and there's something about it that is deeply, shockingly intimate; every gloved touch is worship, every whispered _'your highness'_ a prayer.

In time she closes the book and sets it aside, the candle guttering out under a quick gust of breath; she's reached a place beyond the need for words on a page. Her body knows what happens next; she slides a hand between her thighs and sighs softly as she closes her eyes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In all, Cullen reads _Midnight at Starkeep_ three times before returning it to Varric.

The education does not help. It only serves to give him more specific images to torment himself with as he lies awake, lonely and aching, at night; it's like taking a rusty pocketknife away from a king's torture master and replacing it with a finely honed blade. He's no closer to being able to approach Evelyn in the waking world, but now, when she haunts him at night, she bears a slash of dark silk against her pale face, the fluttering ends of a tied blindfold trailing against the slender curve of her bare shoulder.

He wraps the book in sackcloth before visiting Varric in the main hall, too mortified to risk being seen carrying it across Skyhold's grounds, and attempts to leave it on Varric's table without comment. But he makes it only three steps away before he's compelled to stop and turn back to the dwarf. "I have a question," he blurts out.

Varric chuckles. "Just one?" he says teasingly. "I didn't give you nearly enough credit."

Cullen takes the precaution of glancing around before continuing. It's early, and the main section of the keep is largely empty, with just a few guards standing sentry and a bleary-eyed cleaning crew sweeping at the other end of the hall. "The queen," he says; "why would she _do_ that? Why would she submit to a stranger she couldn't even _see?_ It doesn't make sense."

"Ah, Curly. It's lonely at the top," Varric says.

It's not answer enough. "She could have been assassinated, or abducted," Cullen protests. "She could have put her entire kingdom at risk; it was reckless and selfish--"

"Look at it this way," Varric says, and he's no longer teasing. "She spends her entire life surrounded by people who demand things from her and don't give a nug's ass about what _she_ needs. _You_ try standing in the middle of a crowded room screaming for years, and then see if you can walk away so easily from the first person who _hears_ you."

"But ... he could be _anyone,_ " Cullen says, and finally gets to the true heart of his concern. He could be - _must_ be - someone beneath her, unworthy ... someone not entirely unlike himself. "She's a powerful woman; why would she permit him to--" He can't finish the sentence, flushing red at the thought of exactly what liberties the queen grants to her midnight caller even before the second chapter is through.

"You're right," Varric says; "he _could_ be anyone. There's power in fantasy, in escape; has it occurred to you that maybe that's _exactly_ what she needs?"

 

* * *

 

Evelyn has questions too, but hers are somewhat different.

"Is it the Comte?" she asks as she leans eagerly across the breakfast table, accidentally dragging her sleeve through her porridge in her enthusiasm.

Varric laughs and shakes his head. "I keep telling you two, no spoilers! You're going to have to wait for the next installment like everybody else."

Beside her, Cassandra is more dignified, but no less eager. "The _next_ installment?" she says archly. "So his identity _will_ be revealed in the next book?"

"Hey, now, I didn't say--" Varric protests.

"So you _won't_ be revealing that he's actually the master-at-arms in the next installment?" Cassandra presses slyly.

"No, I ... wait a minute--" Varric throws his hands up, laughing. "Not fair; you two are ganging up on me."

On the other side of the officers' dining hall, Cullen spreads jam on a slice of toast and fights the impulse to stare at Evelyn from across the room. The week that has passed since he returned _Midnight at Starkeep_ to Varric has done little to quiet his longing for her; he aches to touch her, to taste her, to draw soft notes of pleasure from her like a bard coaxing music from a lute.

More than that, though, he longs to offer her ease. He can't get his brief conversation with Varric out of his mind: _it's lonely at the top_. He's made a point of paying attention over the course of the past week, and he's shocked at what he's missed; there are fault lines that he's never noticed, a fragile spiderweb of cracks in the foundation of her strength. Looking closely, he sees her now, the woman beneath the title, staggered by the weight of its responsibilities; he sees the signs of too much stress and too little sleep, sees the way she rolls her shoulders and rubs her neck as if she's constantly tense and aching, sees far too few stolen moments with her friends between long spans of lonely work.

He has always considered his desire for the Inquisitor to be a one-sided matter; it's never occurred to him that _she_ , too, might find something of value in such a match. But Varric's words have made him wonder, have seeded the tiniest of possibilities in his heart: _There's power in fantasy, in escape...._ He has little else to offer her, but he can give her that, the illicit thrill of dreams come to life as he worships at her altar, a blank slate for her to write her fantasies upon.

Of course, he would never carry it to extremes; he can't see himself being half as bold, or going even a fraction as far, as the mystery lover in Varric's book. But he can be what she needs, for as long as she needs it - the catharsis of a listening ear, a pair of gentle hands to ease away her tension in the still hours of the night, a whispering voice to chase away the lonely silence of the dark.

He catches himself glancing in her direction yet again, despite himself. Sera has plunked herself down at the Inquisitor's table, noisily chewing on a slab of toast, and demands to know what they're talking about; Evelyn blushes prettily as she and Cassandra try to fill her in, describing the plot of the book in giggling whispers. Cullen feels his heart stutter with a familiar ache of longing as she catches his eye for the briefest of moments before looking away.

Would she even _want_ what he offered, if he had the nerve? There's a difference, after all, between the safety of fantasy and the cold bite of reality; what sounds romantic and thrilling on the page might earn him a dagger between the ribs if he attempts it in real life. While it's a lovely dream, the thought that he might actually go through with it in the waking world is absurd beyond all reason. For all the ideas the dwarf has planted in his head, for all the fantasies he's tormented himself with this past week, he feels no closer to having her than he ever was; he yearns, still, for what he knows he cannot have.

"Well that's stupid, innit?" Sera exclaims loudly from her seat beside Evelyn, clearly unimpressed by the premise of Varric's fiction. "Noble fancybritches always got to complicate everything. He wants to play with her bits, why don't he just say so?"

Varric is busy choking on an ill-timed sip of coffee, so Cassandra rushes in to defend his work: "Because it's _romantic!_ " she says feelingly. "The thrill of mystery, of _passion_ \--"

"Yeah?" Sera says, cramming another wedge of toast into her mouth. "You actually _like_ that rubbish? You'd really want some creepy old whats-is-face blinding you up and rubbing you down?"

Evelyn and Cassandra exchange a glance that leaves Cullen's heart pounding like a war drum against his ribcage even _before_ he hears them both let out an airy, wistful sigh in perfect unison.

"Oh _Maker_ , yes," Evelyn breathes, while Cassandra makes approving noises of her own.

"Whatever, weirdos," Sera scoffs; across the room, Cullen swallows hard and looks away.

 

* * *

 

Three simple words, and he is lost.

On his trip to Val Royeaux, he seeks out a specialty store in the red lantern district. He changes his mind and tries to walk out half a dozen times, and he wants to die of embarrassment when he draws the attentions of a sales clerk, but finally he leaves, red-faced and stammering, half a paycheck poorer with a few exquisitely crafted items hidden deep within his rucksack, all flawless leather and delectable black silk.

 

* * *

 

Evelyn leaves the war room feeling stressed and out of sorts, the kind of mood that almost makes her wonder if one of her mage friends has summoned a personal storm cloud to follow her around, hovering invisible over her head.

It's been a long day of tense meetings, the sort that drag on without meal breaks, then inevitably dissolve into a downward spiral of cranky, hunger-induced bickering. Commander Cullen is back from Orlais, and apparently bitter about having been forced to go, as he's even less able to bring himself to meet her eyes than usual. His answers to her questions are stammered and strangled, and by the time she flees the council chamber she feels utterly dehumanized.

She's unsure where to go, as she emerges into the main hall. She has a small mountain of work waiting on her desk upstairs, yet she dreads facing it. She wants to head to the training grounds instead and find a partner to spar with, stiff and sore after a day hunched over the war table, but it would serve as a poor substitute for the other physical contact she truly longs for, and would only leave her aching in other ways that aren't possible to cure. She wants to find Cassandra for a repeat of their girls' night in the tavern, but that's not possible either; thoughts of respectability and propriety immediately come flooding in to shame the notion away. She wants Varric to arrange a Wicked Grace night, but that would mean asking him to halt his progress writing _One o'Clock at Starkeep_ for an evening, and that's _definitely_ not possible.

What she _really_ wants is to shed the mantle of Inquisitor for a night, but that's least possible of all.

She heaves a sigh as she enters her tower; silence falls, abrupt and suffocating, as the door swings closed, cutting off the bustle and cheer of the main hall. She loosens the stays on her tunic as she pads up the stairs, resigned to a cold dinner over solitary paperwork.

Her bedroom lies silent and still, golden under a slant of evening light that breaks into soft-edged pieces through the stained glass windows. The servants have already been in, to lay a fire in the hearth and turn down the bed; an object catches her eye on the patterned bedspread, pale against the navy damask. Seeing it is like crossing a tripwire, her heart suddenly rolling like the thunder on the edge of a breaking storm as she realizes what it is ... a long, slender box, tied with a red ribbon.

She's almost too afraid to cross the room and reach for the box; her hand trembles as she tugs the bow apart and lifts the shallow cover. It has to be a joke; for a moment she's certain Sera is poised on the balcony, waiting to laugh at her screams when she discovers something slimy and alive beneath the lid.

She gasps. Inside the box, a single flawless long-stemmed rose, its satiny petals still glistening with dew, lies nestled in a spill of luscious black silk. She's shaking like a winter leaf as she reaches in and removes the items; the silk proves to be a thick blindfold with long trailing ties, such an expensively exquisite thing that she knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that it cannot be a joke, cannot be anything but tantalizingly, terrifyingly _real_.

She shivers, her heart galloping in her heaving chest as she pulls the blindfold free and reveals another item beneath it - a card of heavy, creamy stock, with a single word written on it in a masculine hand:

 _Midnight_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am genuinely humbled by the response to this fic so far. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment and give kudos - you guys are the best! <3

When the clock on Skyhold’s chantry tower sends twelve distant peals echoing out into the lonely dark, Evelyn reaches with a trembling hand for the slip of black silk on her pillow, draws in a deep, steadying breath, and swallows hard.

Her evening has been a waste, her work untouched, her dinner sent away uneaten. Instead, she’s spent long hours pacing her room, alternating between stomach-fluttering excitement and sheer gut-clenching panic. She’s faced Corypheus, world leaders, a breach in the fabric of reality itself; she’s been thrown into battle and used as bait; but she’s certain she’s _never_ been this nervous before.

How could she possibly focus on the fate of the world when another, more important question looms large in her mind: _who?_ Half the thrill is not knowing, yet the mystery holds dangers, too. She considers the possibility that her 'admirer' might be an assassin, or a spy taking advantage of her foolishness to get close to her. She's certain no such enemy could have gotten past Leliana's people, and certain too that the midnight caller has to be a trusted associate of Varric's, in order to be familiar with his unpublished book; yet she's taken precautions anyhow. One of her daggers is hidden in the loveseat, sheathed between the cushions; the other is wedged strategically beneath the mattress, in case things get as far as the bed.

_Maker_ , is she _really_ thinking about letting things _get as far as the bed_ with an unknown stranger?

She has to be insane for even considering such a thing, yet for all her fantasies of illicit meetings with thrilling and dangerous strangers, she's fairly certain she already knows who the mystery lover is. She's been over the possibilities in her head more times than she cares to admit, and has narrowed the most likely culprits down to the author himself, or Cassandra; they are the two most familiar with the story, the two who might be carried away by the romance enough to attempt to act it out.

Her heart hammers as she thinks about it. She’s never considered a relationship with either of them before, and she’s not sure quite how she’ll feel if the fingers that reach for her beyond the darkness of the blindfold are the square blunt fingers of a dwarf or the strong yet soft digits of the Seeker’s hand. She needs convincing, yet she’s certain that the thrill of being blindfolded and breathless before them will go a long way toward reconciling her with the idea of welcoming either to her bed.

She nervously checks her looking-glass one last time, smoothing the tumbled strands of her newly washed hair. She has bathed and selected her attire with the greatest of care, sending up a silent prayer of thanks for the wardrobe Vivienne insisted on having tailored to bolster the Inquisition's image. The inclusion of nightclothes in that wardrobe had felt scandalous at the time; the implication that politicking would require lacy underthings had left her red-faced and stammering. But she's grateful, now, for her friend's Orlesian sensibilities, both for the modest lingerie she's wearing now and the other, racier, items she has set aside for future nights if this one goes well. Tonight she wears a matched set of exquisitely tailored silks from her collection, a pair of loose pajama pants topped with a knee-length robe, tied with a sash at her waist to accentuate her willowy curves. Both are a vibrant cornflower blue, softened by paler swirls of silvery embroidery.

The color perfectly matches her eyes - not that it matters, as she raises the blindfold to her face and knots it behind her head with trembling fingers. A shudder strokes her spine as everything goes dark, the golden glow of the fire and the soft whispering light of scattered candles blinking out abruptly behind the veil of heavy black silk.

In the absence of vision she can't watch for her mystery lover's approach, and a moment's panic flares in her when she considers that maybe this _is_ an elaborate prank after all, and she’s about to end up with a lap full of something wet and bitey, or a pail of something cold and slimy poured over her head, courtesy of Sera. She sits and fists her shaking fingers in the cushions of her loveseat, feeling the edge of her concealed dagger press reassuringly against her thigh. She forces herself to at least _look_ calm and dignified as she perches rigid on the edge of her seat, even if she doesn’t feel it. Her heart is racing, pulse roaring in her ears as she waits for something – anything - to happen, for better or worse.

For the longest moment, nothing does. She nearly jumps out of her skin as the silence is broken by a log shifting and settling in the fire, that simple sound sending her heartbeat skittering like the flailing limbs of a giant cave spider. She’s so excited, so _terrified_ , that she’s nearly overwhelmed by it; part of her desperately wants to rip the blindfold off, lock the door against would-be intruders, bad _or_ good, and go to bed pretending that this possibility had never existed, that her life hadn’t been poised trembling on this precipice of change.

Then she hears the soft, deliberate thump of footsteps on the stairs, and her heart seizes, stills, her breath catching in her throat. She hasn’t shivered like this since being lost in the snow after Haven; she’s shaking clear down to her core as she listens to the stranger's approach. Her midnight caller is gentleman – or lady? – enough to make sure she’s not caught by surprise, approaching carefully and dragging slippered feet against the rug to mark their advance, and she’s struck with the overwhelming urge to weep from the sheer blessed _relief_ of it. They’re here; they came, and whoever they are, whatever they see in the quivering wreck of a woman before them, they’re here with her, _for_ her.

She feels the interloper draw near, gooseflesh prickling on her skin as the new presence washes over her, her heightened senses picking up breath and scent and body heat as the stranger rustles to one knee before her. “My lady,” a voice murmurs softly, the words gusting warm against her neck as the stranger leans close and gently checks the knots of her blindfold to make sure it is secure.

The words shoot straight to her belly like a bolt of chain lightning. The voice is deep and breathy, marked with the barest hint of a growl, like the giant cat she once saw, pacing and powerful, behind its bars in the Ostwick menagerie. A man, then; there’s no mistaking the voice, or the strength and size of the fingers that curl around hers, lifting her hand from her lap and raising it slowly to his mouth. She feels leather glide beneath her fingers, a pair of supple gloves, exquisitely fitted, of hide so thin they’re like a second skin; she can feel the flex of his muscles and the radiant heat of his hand through them, the leather sleek and buttery-soft against her skin as he brushes warm lips gently across the top of her hand in a courtly kiss.

His touch, the graze of his mouth, is electric; she feels a tremor break over her like the crash of a wave in a storm. _Who are you?_ She does not recognize the voice. Definitely not Cassandra, and despite the honeyed rumble of his words, she’s certain it’s not Varric, either; the angles are wrong, the man clearly too tall to be a dwarf as he rises to his feet still holding her hand.

She can't speak; it's struggle enough to control her shuddering breath. She feels the cushion shift as he sits down on the loveseat beside her, and returns her hand to her knee as if it were a precious object he's afraid of breaking. She clenches her fingers into a fist, her skin still tingling with warmth where his mouth has brushed it. She's overwhelmed by him; he fills her sight, even with the blindfold on. Her senses are overloaded, full of him; she feels his body heat radiate beside her, smells the new leather of his gloves, hears his breath coming in bursts almost as jagged as hers, feels every nerve in her leg light up with radiant need as his knee brushes lightly against her thigh when he shifts in his seat. She smells the heady scent of his skin, rich with the delectable tang of spiced soap, and she's stricken with the urge to taste him, to find his neck and lave her tongue over the pulsing vein that drums there.

_Maker_ , what in the world is wrong with her? He could be _anybody_. Her mind races, trying to piece together what few clues he's given her, seeking the answer there. Cole is the next likely culprit, now that Varric has been ruled out - this is exactly the kind of thing he might read, this secret longing that's been foremost in her mind these past weeks since reading _Midnight at Starkeep_ , and try to _help_ \- but already she knows it cannot be him. Not Warden Blackwall, either; she hadn't detected the whisper of a beard against her skin as he leaned in close. The Iron Bull, perhaps, but this isn't his style; he is too direct for games like this. If he wanted her, he would have claimed her by now.

_Who_ , then?

She hears her mystery man moving around beside her, retrieving something from a basket on the floor. There's a clink of glass, the pop of a cork, then his hand is on hers again, gently opening her fingers then closing them around the stem of a wineglass. "Thank you," she rasps hoarsely, raising the trembling glass to her mouth to take a careful sip of what proves to be a rather exquisite Orlesian red. Her hand is shaking so badly she can't keep the glass upright, and it must be obvious; as she lowers her glass his fingers close on hers again, steadying them.

"Are you all right?" he husks softly as he gives her hand a gentle squeeze, and she swallows hard.

"Yes. Sorry. I'm just..." _Overwhelmed, terrified, apparently so starved for affection that after five minutes in a stranger's presence I'm ready to climb him like a tree?_ "...tired."

"Long day, my lady?" he murmurs near her ear.

She thinks about the war room, the endless meetings, the frayed tempers and irritable sniping. "The longest." she admits.

"Tell me about it?" She feels him trap a lock of her thick hair between gloved thumb and forefinger, then slowly slide down its length until it slips free, and she shivers; the gentle tug on her scalp, the nearly imperceptible graze of his glove against the shoulder of her robe, is more somehow sensual than entire sexual encounters have been in the past, in other places, with other men.

She pauses. She doesn't know what to say to him, without knowing who he is. She's certain he's a member of the Inquisition; he wouldn't have gotten past Cullen's guards if he didn't already live within the keep. But that still left a long list of suspects. Solas? Krem? Master Dennet? One of the Orlesian nobles who spend their days hanging about in the main hall pretending to be important? A double agent trying to gain her confidence, hoping to coax whispered secrets from her in the dark?

She can't tell him about her day in the war room, without knowing whether the issues she's dealt with there are within the man's pay grade. She can't vent her frustrations with her advisors, without knowing exactly where his loyalties lie within Skyhold. She can't even resort to gossip to fill the silence, without knowing what circles he travels in; Maker forbid she should accidentally hurt or offend him with unknowing words.

Small talk isn't going to work here, not in this situation, not with this man. They both have to hide the surface details that they would so casually bare to another in other circumstances - her to protect the Inquisition, him to preserve his identity. If she's going to communicate with him at all, if she's going to have even a chance of getting to know him on _any_ level beyond the barrier of the blindfold, she's going to have to let all her _other_ barriers down; there can be no other way. She must be deeply, terrifyingly _real,_ in a way she's never been with anyone else.

So while she can't tell him the details of her day in the war room, she can at least think of the Commander, of how achingly disheartening it was when he refused to acknowledge her existence over the gleaming surface of the map table, and answers with words that are as honest and bare as any she's ever spoken: "It was ... lonely."

She hears the soft intake of his breath, feels him withdraw his hand from where it toyed with her hair. "Was it?" he asks softly. "I would have guessed you'd be surrounded by your team all day."

She raises her wineglass with a shaking hand and drains it. "I was." She lets out a small, trembling laugh. "That can sometimes be worse than being alone."

Silence stretches for a long moment, before she feels his leg shift against the hem of her robe as he leans close again. "I'm ... I'm sorry," he says, and it feels like there's something more he's apologizing for.

Evelyn draws in a shuddering breath. "Don't be," she murmurs. " _You're_ here."

She can't see his face, but she imagines she hears the faintest hint of a smile in his voice as he ghosts two knuckles along the curve of her jaw. "So I am."

Tears press against her eyelids, unbidden; she swallows hard. After everything she's done for the Inquisition, without asking for anything for herself, the idea of being wanted, desired, _appreciated_ by another in return makes her want to weep. She feels invisible most days, elevated to such a high status that most people have stopped seeing the person behind the figurehead; she watches people's eyes slide over her as if she's a statue they're so used to passing in some dusty corner of a courtyard that they no longer notice she's there. That someone _sees_ her, not as the Herald, not as someone to make demands of, but as a _woman,_ moves her more deeply than anything ever has. She can't see him, but he sees _her_ , and suddenly, abruptly, that is enough. That is _everything._

His thumb brushes her cheek, collecting the single tear that beads below the bottom edge of the blindfold. "I'm here," he husks gently, "for whatever my lady wishes."

The words are like a caress, his voice as soft and smooth as velvet; she feels it ripple along the nerves just beneath her skin as surely as if he'd stroked his gloved fingertips from neck to belly. She swallows and leans in, lips parted around her stuttering breath, suddenly, desperately, wanting him to cup her face between his gloved hands and kiss her hard. _This is what your lady wishes_ , she thinks, fiercely willing him to close the few inches that remain between them with the hot seeking press of his mouth.

Instead, his hand slides away, and she has to bite back the soft cry of disappointment that tries to escape her lips. He gently takes her wineglass from her and refills it; his fingers coil around hers, warm and safe, as he returns it to her hand. His hand lingers there as he lifts his own wineglass to hers, clinking the bowls together. She feels him lean in close, hears him inhale against her neck, breathing in the scent of the delicate Antivan perfume Josephine gave her for her name-day as it rides the fluttering pulse point at the hollow of her throat. He rumbles something against her ear, his voice so deliciously deep that it makes her toes curl against the rug; she swallows hard, barely able to find her own voice as she repeats the toast back to him: _"To midnight.”_

For a long while they sit comfortably, sipping their wine and talking in soft murmurs about everything and nothing. The words don’t matter; they’re inconsequential compared to the press of his leg next to hers as he gradually relaxes and settles against her, the heat of his arm as she lets her elbow graze against it. Her heart stutters with every rumbled word, each accidental touch. For a while the Inquisition doesn’t exist, the Veil has never been breached; her entire world has narrowed down to the soft slide of his fingers as he toys with the cuff of her sleeve.

After another refill of wine, she’s had enough; her head is starting to swim, her edges of reality gone dangerously soft. She turns and feels for the end table, sets her glass down. He reaches out while her back is to him; she starts at the unexpected graze of his glove against the shell of her ear, slowly tracing from there down the side of her neck. His fingers comb softly into her long hair, gently sweeping it to one side, revealing the long, slender column of her throat.

She freezes, her pulse galloping in her veins as she prays to every god that ever was or will be, hoping that the brush of hot lips will follow the trail his fingers have blazed against her neck. She grips the arm of the loveseat with trembling hands, trying to steady herself. _Maker_ , she’s in trouble. She doesn’t even know who he is, he’s barely touched her, and she’s ready to crawl out of her skin for want of a single breath-warmed press of lips against the tender hollow of her throat. Just one kiss and she would give him everything, as wanton and daring as the queen in Varric’s book.

For the longest moment nothing happens; her stomach jumps as a log pops in the fireplace, breaking the still silence of the room. Then his hand is on her again, the backs of two fingers slowly stroking the long corded muscle of her neck; the touch sends a thrill of nerves rippling through her body, a dance of gooseflesh across her skin. “May I, my lady?” he murmurs softly against her ear.

She nods, not trusting her voice. His hands slide up to cup her neck, gloved thumbs moving in deliberate circles against her nape. “ _Oh,_ ” she sighs as the warmth of his hands spreads through her, her eyes rolling back beneath the blindfold. She hadn’t realized how much of the day's tension she still carries in her neck and shoulders, until her muscles begin to relax under the rolling press of his fingers.

Sweet merciful _Maker_ , is it even possible for a person to have such amazing hands? They feel like heaven on her body, large and strong and so very warm, his gloves so tight she can feel calluses ridge beneath the thin leather. He takes his time, lavishing slow and patient attention on her neck one aching knot at a time, and she can't help but let her mind wander, imagining those hands running bold and hot over _other_ tender skin, cupping and stroking and teasing as they explore....

She's not sure which pleasure it is, actual or imagined, that teases a moan from her throat at last. She feels his fingers clench against her nape at the sound, feels a shudder of barely controlled need ripple through him against her back, and a thrill races through her. Her spine acts as a conduit that delivers the heat of his hands directly to her belly, where it spools low and aching, a core of liquid need.

She wants more; Maker, she wants _him_. She lets out another mewling moan as she tilts her head back, leaning into his touch as his hands slip down to her shoulders, massaging through the fabric of her robe. The back of her head comes to rest against his breastbone, and she's aware that if the blindfold weren't in the way she'd be looking up into his eyes, so close it would take just the slightest shift, the smallest arching of her back, to brush their trembling lips together.

She draws in a shuddering breath as his fingers return to the bare skin at the nape of her neck, his hands trying to slide under the collar of her robe to have better access to her shoulders. When that fails, his fingertips trail around to the front of the robe and trace along the deep V neckline, fingertips slipping under the hem and tugging gently, trying to loosen the cloth. His knuckles brush the tender skin along her collarbone, ghosting softly over the swells of her cleavage, and she _knows_ she should be mortified by the way her breath is coming out now in ragged panting gasps, but strangely she's not. Damn it, but she wants this, she _needs_ it, and after all she's done for the Inquisition without asking for anything in return, she _deserves_ this, to finally have something of her own, something that is hers and hers alone.

His hands slide back to her neck, and try to press under the newly loosened fabric of her collar to rub her shoulders. He's no more successful, and she feels a growl of frustration rumble in his chest; she leans into him, feeling him, solid and warm and _real_ against her back as his breath stirs the hair at her temple. He's here, and he's genuine, and she's stunned at how comfortable this already feels, how deeply she trusts him after a mere hour together.

Her throat tightens, tears pressing anew against the back of the blindfold. There has to be some mistake; gifts like this aren't meant for her. She's suddenly overwhelmed all over again, deeply moved and trembling with awe.

"Who are you?" she whispers into the silence of the room.

He stills against her. "We should do this properly," he husks at last, deliberately deflecting the question; his hands skim down her sides, and rest lightly on the sash at her waist. She sucks in her breath, feeling her stomach plummet as he tugs gently on the ties of her robe.

"Take this off," he growls into her ear, "and get on the bed."


	4. Chapter 4

Cullen sits trembling, a small eternity passing between each beat of his thundering heart, as Evelyn stands and unties her robe.

Maker’s breath, has a more beautiful woman ever existed in the history of all of Thedas? From the moment he crested the stairs at midnight, trembling and weak-kneed, and she came into view, sitting graceful and calm before the fire, he’s been lost. He’s always found her lovely, but tonight she takes his breath away. By firelight, she is a goddess; the dark hair that spills down her shoulders is threaded with dancing strands of gold, and the metallic embroidery in her robe catches and holds the fire’s glow, making her shine as if she is wreathed in starlight. He is enchanted; she wields a form of magic even a world-weary Templar can fall into and never look back.

He looks away as she lets her robe slide from her shoulders, respectful of her privacy even now – _especially_ now. He’s painfully aware that he has no right to be here, no right to sully her body with the touch of his hand, no right to look at her bared skin as the fabric of her robe pools like water on the floor at his feet, so near that he could reach out and halt her, draw her back into his lap with a single touch. He swallows hard and focuses on a point of light from a low-burning candle on the other side of the room, his hands curling into fists against the cushions of the loveseat as she pads across the rug and slides onto the bed.

_Maker,_ what is he doing? He hadn’t quite intended to let things get this far. He'd expected this first night to be tentative and reserved, a blind date in the most literal of senses - an audition to see whether he fits the part as midnight companion, whether he will win the role for future nights. And in a lot of ways, it has been; but rather than the awkwardness he'd been expecting, the silences and hesitations between them have been electric, alive with fascination and need.

It is simply so easy to be with her. There is something deeply beautiful about the anonymity that the blindfold gives him; beyond a veil of dark silk, his usual self-doubts melt away. Even though she is the one who wears it, the blindfold fits him like a mask, freeing him to be somebody he could never be in the hours that lay outside the silent safety of midnight. It is permission to step outside the bounds of who he is, permission to become someone who can touch without trembling, speak without stammering, give without fear. Knowing that he doesn't have to claim whatever mistakes he makes tonight as his own, after a lifetime of highly regimented actions, is an unbelievably liberating thing.

So when she moves to the bed, he ignores the voice in his head that cautions him against getting carried away, and rises to follow.

Once he's certain she's settled on the bed, he allows himself to look, and finds himself enthralled anew. She lies on her stomach, head resting on her folded arms; she's bare from the waistband of her pajama bottoms to the nape of her neck, all the creamy skin he struggled to access beyond her robe now exposed and waiting for his touch. By the soft light of the candles on her bedside tables, she is a study in contrasts; her hair is so dark it appears black, spread out across her white pillow like a spill of wet ink, while the milk-white skin of her back is starkly pale against the midnight-blue bedspread. She is as stunning and beautiful a work of art as anything he's ever seen; this moment could be lifted from his memory and hung in a place of honor in the galleries of a queen.

He swallows, his breath coming in hard shudders as he rests a knee on the edge of the bed and leans in. Her back is sprinkled with a dusting of freckles, dark against pale; he feels electric, strangely privileged to be graced with this knowledge that only a lover will ever know. He aches to map them with his tongue, to taste them and graze them with his teeth. Instead he reaches out reverently and ghosts the tip of one gloved finger over them, slowly tracing a line from each to the next. He feels her tremble beneath his touch, the muscles of her back tensing and spasming as his finger slides lazily between her shoulder blades and down the length of her spine, connecting the dots. She has told her war council about the astrariums she's encountered on her travels, and he thinks of them now as he traces patterns on her skin, mapping her freckles into constellations more deeply, achingly beautiful than anything the night sky has to offer.

She lets out a strangled sound; he stops, his fingers pausing at the dip of the small of her back, and rests his palm there, in what he hopes is a warm and comforting gesture. "All right, my lady?" he murmurs.

Evelyn lifts her head and turns, out of habit, toward the sound of his voice; he sees her face rise over the slope of her shoulder, the blindfold a dark slash against her pale skin, the pink of her tongue pressing between parted lips as she nods. He reaches out with his free hand to brush loose tendrils of hair away from her cheek, simply because he _can_. To be able to caress her so freely, to reach for her so readily, is a revelation; he wonders how he will manage to stay his hand around the war table tomorrow, when touching her already feels as natural as breathing.

He recoils from the thought of letting his secret slip that way, tension knotting in his gut. How would she react, if she knew it was _him_ beyond the darkness of the blindfold, _his_ hands on her skin? Would she be upset? Angry? Or worst of all ... _disappointed?_ He feels his breath catch in his throat as his hand starts to smooth its way over her skin again, rubbing in small, languid circles against the hollow of her lower back. What price will he pay, if she figures it out?

He has gone to great lengths to conceal all signs of his identity. Foremost is the need to disguise his voice; he speaks an octave lower than his usual register, the result of a few weeks' practice as he paced in the late-night solitude of his office, feeling like an idiot as he talked to himself yet knowing that he had to scrub every last trace of his Fereldan-turned-Kirkwaller accent from his speech. His efforts push his voice into his chest, makes his words slow and rumbly, dark and somewhat dangerous, which somehow feels oddly fitting for the hours on the other side of midnight.

He'd even taken the precaution of buying several cakes of spiced soap from an apothecary before leaving Orlais, so the telltale scent of the spindleweed-oil soap used in the barracks will not give him away. That, of course, led to him needing to buy a set of clothing, so the warm scent of his fancy soap - or, worse, her perfume - won't linger on his collar by day and give him away over the map table. He'd made that selection with care as well - casual laced trousers and a soft, loose shirt, comfortable enough for long hours curled up by her side, yet fine enough to provide tactile interest and the impression of wealth if she feels inclined to toy with buttons or play with his shirt's embroidered hems. Whatever other identifying details he has that can't be hidden - the scar on his lip, or the curl of his hair - he will have conceal by staying ahead of questing fingers and deflecting any attempts at physical exploration she may make.

It does not escape him that he has gone to such efforts to hide his identity when it would take the mere fraction of a second for her to lift a hand and pull the blindfold away. However, he deeply suspects that she won't. There is an unspoken rule to this encounter that they both instinctively seem to understand, a fragile symbiosis of their roles; he will not harm, startle, or otherwise abuse her while she is vulnerable beneath the blindfold, and in return, she will not attempt to remove it. Their situation relies on a deep, unwavering trust in each other, that they will both respect the rules; to do otherwise would be to immediately invalidate their arrangement. And while she may be curious - _who are you? -_ he _knows_ she's not willing to bring things to an end just now; that much is clear by the way she arches and grinds into the mattress as his hands slip up her back in tandem, slowly massaging the muscles on either side of her spine.

Maker, but her body is exquisite. She favors archery on the battlefield, and it favors her too; the long lean muscles of her arms, shoulders and back are beautifully sculpted from long hours of drawing a bowstring. The freckled planes of her back taper to a trim waist; he can't help but run his hands over her, under the guise of a backrub, caressing the hollow at the small of her back and rubbing his thumbs over the tantalizing dimples formed where the flare of her slim hips is lost to the loose silk of her pajama bottoms. He stares, utterly rapt, as her body responds to the brush of his hands, her muscles quivering, gooseflesh rising along her skin, a rosy flush blooming along the ridges of her shoulder blades and the muscled flat of her back. He can't quite believe, despite everything, his careful planning and repeated re-reads of Varric's book looking for hopeful cues, that he is actually here with her, leaning over her half-naked body and _touching her_ as if it were his right. Whatever else may happen, this night has already been an extraordinary gift.

He's never been afforded more than a handshake before, and suddenly he's near enough to her to inhale her scent, to run his fingers through her bed-tousled hair, to feel the alluring softness of her skin and the round firmness of the flesh beneath. It's intoxicating ... and also _incredibly_ improper. If anyone were to find out he was here, taking these liberties, he would be completely and utterly ruined, probably driven from Skyhold in disgrace. He's almost amazed he hasn't been discovered already; he half expected to be seized upon entry, certain that Leliana has spies watching the entrance to the Inquisitor's quarters at all times, waiting to pounce on men like him who dare to get ideas above their station, and has spent the past hour and more waiting for the tread of a foot on the stair, the rasp of a sword drawn to challenge his presence.

He's aware he's allowed things to spiral well out of his control. He had meant to be a listening ear, a sounding board for her day's troubles, and he supposes he _was_ that, yet even that simple task had gotten away from him. He'd found, at first, that conversation was just as stilted in the bedroom as it was in the war room, although for different reasons - he'd been terrified of letting personal details slip that might cause her to guess who he was. In the absence of neutral things to talk about, their conversation had turned deeply, stunningly intimate, far too quickly; it had been pillow talk, without having been to bed first, and that unexpected intimacy had spurred him on to indulge in others - caressing touches, wine-soaked whispers, the frankly _insane_ suggestion that she disrobe.

Yet has he _truly_ done anything wrong? A bit of conversation, if deeply personal, and a backrub - which isn't completely appropriate, yet he's seen Leliana rub Josephine's shoulders several times while hunched over the war table, stuck on some diplomatic puzzle whose solution refuses to be teased out. Perhaps it isn't too late; if he _is_ revealed, he can shrug the whole thing off as an ill-considered joke, he and the Inquisitor can share an awkward laugh, and he can burn his gloves and go on cursing Varric's name.

Then she moans and arches under his hands, and he realizes he's kidding himself. He can hear her gasping for breath against her pillow, making soft mewling sounds of need; he swallows hard, forcing himself to look away from her blushing skin as his fingers tighten against her shoulders. He is one bad decision away from naked limbs tangling in sweat-damp sheets, and he can't quite bring himself to regret the path that's brought him here.

It would be _so easy_ to simply slide his hands beneath her, to cup the firm breasts that press bare against the coverlet, to murmur words of love into her ear until she lifts her head again to track the sound, then claim her mouth in a hungry kiss as her lips part around the path of a needy moan. He pictures himself easing her over onto her back as he plunders her mouth with his tongue, running his gloved hands down her aching flesh, exploring and stroking and teasing until she's writhing and desperate beneath him....

It's what she wants, isn't it? To lose herself in a stranger's arms for a night, to surrender to the fantasy of wanting and being wanted? He can allay his guilty conscience all he wants with lies about his motives, of good intentions and pure ideals, but the truth is, Evelyn hadn't tied that blindfold on tonight and sat waiting in the silence of midnight hoping for calming conversation and courtly gestures. If she's willing to play the game the fictional heroine plays in Varric's novel, it's because she wants to be treated the way the queen of Starkeep is treated by her midnight lover.

Cullen hasn't been sure of much in his lifetime, yet he's achingly, terrifyingly certain of this: if he were to reach out right now and untie the drawstring of her pajama bottoms in one long, trembling draw, she would follow him willingly into the abyss.

He breaks away suddenly, gasping, arms braced against the mattress while Evelyn stirs in confusion beside him, moaning in protest at the withdrawal of his hands from her shoulders. He can't ... he simply _can't;_ it's too much, far too quickly. He can't bring himself to take advantage, to debase her in this way, even if she is willing; this whole idea has been insane from the start....

It takes several deep breaths before he's calmed himself and regained some semblance of control; then he extends a shaking hand and runs the backs of two gloved fingers slowly in a line from the nape of her neck to the band of her pants in a soft gesture of farewell, trying to memorize the feel of her body, the satiny glide of her skin beneath his hand. "It grows late, my lady," he murmurs, ignoring her mewl of complaint. "I should let you rest."

He rises to fetch a folded blanket from atop a nearby sideboard, then returns to the bed and spreads the soft fleece over her, pulling the fabric up over her pink-flushed, slightly sweat-dewed skin and smoothing it down with broad caressing circles. "Sleep well, my lady." he husks as he runs his gloved fingers through her hair to pull it away from her ear.

Without thinking, he bends his head and presses a longing, lingering kiss to the newly exposed nape of her neck. He freezes, sucking in his breath in a gasp, stricken with the sudden realization that if it wasn't too late to turn back before, it certainly is now; all hope of being able to laugh this off as a passing, ill-advised fancy if he were caught died with that single crush of his lips against her salt-damp skin.

He steps away, upset and confused; he feels the need to flee, to run and never look back. He's again overwhelmed with the knowledge that he has no right to be here, no right to touch her, to taste her. He's suddenly certain he'll find guards waiting to arrest him when he steps out of her chambers, to expose him for the Void-cursed fool he is. He stumbles toward the stairs, his footsteps fumbling, shaking and distressed; he nearly makes it, before a single pleading word spoken from the bed halts him in his tracks:

_"Wait."_

He feels his stomach twist; his hands clench into fists at his side as he turns to look at her. She's lifted her head from the pillow and is struggling again to turn her face as if to look her shoulder; for a moment he's terrified she'll pull the blindfold aside. But the slash of dark silk remains against the pale of her face, and the sight of it, above the pink flush of her cheeks and her parted, panting lips, is enthralling. He's gripped by the overwhelming urge to say fuck it all and shed his clothing, to slide under the blanket with her. If he's going to be banished from Skyhold in disgrace, as he's half-certain he will be, it would be worth it to go knowing the feel of her body beneath his, the taste of her mouth on his lips - oh, _Maker_ , would it ever be worth it.

He steadies himself and takes a few steps closer to the bed. "Yes, my lady?" he asks.

The tip of a pink tongue darts out to wet her lips before she asks, charmingly, absurdly shy: "Will you be back?"

Cullen swallows, his hands shaking as he nears the bed and leans in close.   With that one request, all his insecurities go slipping away, all his doubts. She is his queen, and he her midnight lover; he can deny her nothing. He will give her whatever she asks for, even if it means going gladly to his own ruin.

He slides his lips against the elegant slope of her neck - there's no point _not_ to, now that he's already crossed that line - then lets his teeth graze against the tender skin behind her ear, nuzzling her earlobe with his nose. He feels her shiver beneath him, her breath coming in long, shuddering gasps. He feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth as he lets his voice out in the deepest, breathiest rumble he can muster, right against her ear:

"As my lady wishes."


	5. Chapter 5

Evelyn wakes the next morning and rolls over, uncurling and flexing her sleep-heavy limbs like a Mabari in a shaft of morning light, stretching against a sun-warmed patch of stone. She feels light, alert, more refreshed than a night's sleep has left her in ages. It takes her a moment to remember why, until she opens her eyes and is met with blackness.

 _The blindfold_. The last night's events come back in a rush, a wine-soft blur of murmurs in her ear that felt like caresses, and the attentions of warm, strong hands that actually _were._ She feels her cheeks flush with embarrassed heat as she pulls the still-knotted blindfold from her eyes and tries to disentangle its ties from her sleep-tousled hair. She remembers mewling and arching under her midnight visitor's hands with the greed of a love-drunk cat, remembers begging unspoken for kisses through gasped breaths and parted lips, remembers teetering on the verge of pleading with him to _stay_ before she caught herself and asked him to return, instead. Maker's breath, had she _really_ behaved so brazenly?

That she is still wearing the blindfold at all is proof that she had. She'd left it on after his departure, meaning to ... _well_. Her fingers had been on her waistband the moment she heard the door thump closed behind him at the foot of the stairs, aching to finish what he would not. Yet something had stayed her hand; she didn't want seek her pleasure by pretending that he was still with her beyond the dark of the blindfold. She wants the touch on her body to _be_ his, wants to save her pleasure for him. She has so little to offer him in return for his affections, yet she can give him that, holding her body sacred for when he comes back ... _if_ he comes back. _Maker_ , what he must think of her.

Yet somehow, despite it all, she can't quite bring herself to regret the fact that her gentleman caller is, in fact, a gentleman. She still feels the hot press of his mouth blazing like a brand against the nape of her neck as she washes her face and combs out her hair, and she touches her fingers to the spot and indulges in a smile. Somehow the sum of all those small caresses and that one longing kiss have left her beautifully sated in a way she can't quite explain, and that in itself is a revelation. What she _thought_ she needed and what he seemed to somehow _know_ she needed were two different things, and the simple weight of his lips against her skin feels like a gift as she dresses in her leathers and slips from her room.

She faces her day with two goals burning in her mind: the first, to find Cassandra, drag her into an abandoned hallway, and tell her _everything_ , or as much as she can manage through the inevitable nug-pitched screeching that is bound to entangle her words.

The other, more pressing goal, is to find the answer to the question that hums in her veins like a jar of Sera's bees: _who?_ Varric will know, or will be able to shorten the list of likely suspects considerably; there can't be _that_ many people in Skyhold who have had access to his manuscript or the advance copy of his book, especially since she and Cassandra have shared custody of the latter for weeks now.

So she's shocked when she enters the dining room to find Sera hunched over a _very_ familiar book, dribbling egg yolk on its outspread pages. "She _swoons_ as she feels his fingers knock on the door to her - " Sera pauses in her dramatic reading to let out a snorting, tittering laugh aimed at the author himself, who is sitting several seats down with his arms crossed, glowering darkly - " _front parlour?_ This is daft, innit? Who _talks_ like this?"

"Where did you get that?" Evelyn blurts out in a rush of panic, frozen before the table in a paralysis of guilty conscience. Varric's advance copy of _Midnight at Starkeep_ is, or should be, upstairs on her desk; she'd recovered the book from Cassandra just a few days ago, when the Seeker reluctantly handed it over, noticeably dog-eared from more than a few readings. She knows it was there last night; if Sera has the book now, there's a very real chance that she's been in her quarters this morning - where she would have seen Evelyn in her bed asleep, with a very incriminating slip of black silk still tied around her eyes.

But Sera shows no sign of knowledge as she idly breaks a scone in two and stuffs half into her mouth. "Upstairs, in the library. There's a whole stack of them."

Evelyn turns to Varric for confirmation, who looks like he's one more insulted line of purple prose away from knocking the book from Sera's hands with a well-aimed crossbow bolt. "It's in print now," the dwarf affirms grumpily; "my publisher sent a whole box of them last week. I donated fifty copies to the library; hopefully they're treated better than _Hard in Hightown_ was. I still haven't tracked down half of those ... and just what were _you_ doing in a library, anyhow?"

"Dorian told me about it," Sera says around a mouthful of food. "Said there were a few too many 'heaving bosoms' in it for his tastes, which made him think it'd be right up my alley ... and of course - " she pauses to consult the book, spraying crumbs from her mouth as she snorts with laughter again - "I mean _alley_ in the way it's used on page ninety-three --"

Evelyn sinks into a chair across from Sera, feeling disappointment knot in her stomach. So much for discreetly teasing out a short list of potential mystery men; from the look of things, all of Skyhold has had free access to Varric's book for at least a week.   _Anyone_ could have read _Midnight at Starkeep_ by now.

Sera looks up from the book at last, pausing in the act of dragging her remaining pastry through a pot of honeyed butter, crumbs and all. She arches an eyebrow and smirks wickedly. "Well, it looks like _someone_ got her scone buttered last night, yeah?" she says, then turns to Varric with a spate of maniacal laughter, waving her breakfast in the air for emphasis. "Hey, Varric, _buttered scone_. Bet you never thought of that one, didya?"

Evelyn's eyes widen in shock. "I did _not!"_ she gasps quickly, but she feels a damning surge of color rise immediately to her cheeks, contradicting her words.

"Not _you,"_ Sera says dismissively. "I'm talking about Princess Crankybutt over there." She nods as she licks a smear of butter from her thumb, indicating something across the room with the tilt of her chin. "It's about time she got the stick removed from her --"

" _Careful,_ " Varric growls warningly, as Evelyn turns in her seat to look. Cassandra stands several paces away, arrested in mid-step with a bowl of steaming porridge in her hands, and whatever impression she'd given Sera a moment before is gone. She looks stunned and slightly murderous, staring at her breakfast as if she's about to upend it over Sera's head. Her mouth works in outrage, as if she's trying to come up with an articulate response; ultimately she lets out a disgusted noise and spins on her heel, marching out of her room with her forgotten bowl still in her hands.

"Nice going there, Buttercup," Varric mutters, groaning heavily as he pushes himself up from his bench. "I'd better go make sure our lady Seeker is all right."

Evelyn is grateful for Varric's response, as she's still frozen to her chair in horrified embarrassment, completely incapable of rushing to her friend's side herself. "Yeah, you'd _better_ go," Sera calls out after him, pausing to thumb through the book looking for an appropriate phrase, half the pages already cemented together with smears of fallen butter and sticky crumbs. "Go comfort her with your 'throbbing lance of love' ... Andraste's arse, what does that even _mean?_ " The sound of her mocking laughter follows Varric from the room, and once Evelyn can feel her legs again, she moves to flee as well, no longer quite as hungry as she'd been when she came downstairs to eat.

She heads, instead, to the library, which is empty at this hour. She sits in Dorian's chair, despite the risk of being scolded - he'll know, somehow; he _always_ knows - and takes a moment to breathe. The scent of new ink and old paper, the dance of dust motes trapped in a lancet beam of morning sunlight, the sleepy chatter of Leliana's ravens in the rotunda above, all serve to calm her as she tries to sift her jumbled thoughts.

She's irritated with Sera - although she's not sure whether the true source of her annoyance is her crude comments to Cassandra, or her bashing of the novel they so love - but she's rather thankful that her antics have halted the course of her morning. Because _of course_ she can't go to Cassandra and boast about her midnight lover, not when the Seeker longs for such things even more deeply than she does herself. She knows her friend would be happy for her, yet it would be insensitive - maybe even downright cruel - to rub it in, when Cassandra too feels the weight of responsibility and the late-night echoes of loneliness with nothing to balance it, no voice to whisper comfort in her ear, no warm hands in the darkness to offer her ease.

Besides ... the more she thinks about it, here in the light of day, the more absurd it sounds. That she was willing to let a stranger into her quarters at all is shocking; she is the leader of the Inquisition, after all, a choice target for any who would serve her enemy or exploit her for their own gain. The threat of harm, the danger of assassination or abduction or coercion exists all around her, even _without_ inviting it willingly into her own bed. _Anything_ could have happened to her while she sat vulnerable on that first midnight, blinded by her false assumptions that the mystery man was someone to be trusted just as much as by the blindfold. It's just as likely that Cassandra _wouldn't_ be happy for her, after all; it's possible she would berate her, and rightfully so, for being a fool.

She is far from certain, now that she's distanced from the thrill and romance of her midnight encounter, that her mysterious caller's motives are what they seem to be. She already trusts him completely with the safety of her body - it's insane, perhaps, but she _knows_ , somehow, that he will not harm her as long as she has the blindfold on - but she would be wise to doubt everything else. While it's perfectly possible that he truly _is_ a harmless admirer, newly given the confidence to approach her by the example set by the hero of Varric's book, it's also equally possible that someday she will find a letter on her desk full of demands for money or favors or political aid, threatening to expose this scandal if she doesn't comply.

She was merely curious before, but now the need to find out who her mystery man is has taken on a new urgency. She gets up and wanders the library until she finds confirmation of what Varric has told her. Sure enough, there's an entire shelf dedicated to _Midnight at Starkeep_ , yet only about a half dozen copies remain, of the original fifty.

She stands defeated before the bookcase, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms. She can track the librarian down, or even question Dorian to see who has accessed the library's collections in the past week, but there's little point. More people have borrowed the book now than can possibly be identified, and by this point copies would have changed hands anyhow, passed around the barracks - though she's told that Varric's serials are positively _tame_ compared to the Antivan paperbacks the soldiers keep hidden in their bedrolls - and shared between giggling kitchen maids.

Still, there must be other ways to narrow her midnight visitor's identity down. She makes it her mission to _know_ ; somehow, she'll find a way. Merely for the safety of the Inquisition, _of course_. Not at all because she's dying to know for herself, to put a face to the voice, to be able to imagine the look in his eyes the next time he has her writhing and gasping on her bed.

For there _will_ be a next time; she just won't tell Cassandra - or anyone else, for that matter - about it. To take a risk like this, to let a stranger into her bed, may be foolish, but to pass up such an opportunity? Now _that_ would be truly stupid.

 

* * *

 

Cullen nearly skips breakfast, fearing his secret will be laid bare the moment he sees the Inquisitor across the mess hall; he's absurdly certain that she - and everyone else in Skyhold, for that matter - will _know_ the very moment he enters the room. No matter how fiercely determined he is to keep his facial expressions under control and give nothing away, he's not sure how to keep from looking like a Mabari puppy lying in worship at the feet of his mistress the moment his eyes meet hers.

Maker's breath, _why_ did he think this was a good idea again, exactly?

Yet when he does finally steel his nerves and walk into the dining room, Evelyn isn't even there. Her usual table is nearly empty, with only Sera left behind, her head bent low over something as she forks eggs from someone else's abandoned plate, randomly sniggering and muttering words like 'shrine of Andraste' and 'golem control rod' under her breath.

There's no pressing business in the war room today, Maker be praised; the idea of having to face Evelyn in the light of day is terrifying enough _without_ having to do so with Leliana's watchful eyes measuring every poorly concealed facial expression, every shade of color that rises to his skin. Yet as he leaves the breakfast table the thought of going back to his office to spend the day sitting at his desk fills him with dread. If Evelyn happens to wander in, as she so often does, to discuss some report or pressing piece of Inquisiton business, and he finds himself alone with her.... The thought arrests his steps, and he stands in the middle of the courtyard for a long moment, hands clenching into fists, before turning on his heel and heading for the gates instead.

He's not _avoiding_ her, exactly, as he makes his way down onto the frozen slopes beyond Skyhold's walls.   There's an exquisite sort of torture in having to keep the best thing that's ever happened to him to himself, to keep himself grounded when he feels like flying; he feels jumbled, thoughts scattered, emotions wheeling like a flock of gulls above a bay.   He needs time to untangle it all, to get his feelings back in check.

 _Maker_ , but he can't quite seem to bring himself to believe that last night wasn't simply a beautiful dream.

He spends much of his day among the soldiers' encampments overseeing various training exercises, even though such responsibilities have been long since delegated to his underlings, yelling at recruits and annoying his officers until he's politely but firmly shooed back into the keep. It's late afternoon when he reenters Skyhold's walls, and even then he invents tasks to justify avoiding his office, speaking to the quartermaster about field rations for upcoming troop maneuvers, then heading to the smithy to check the hold's weapons supply. The blacksmith and his assistants have already gone for the night, the forges cooling and the room silent, but Cullen finds reasons to linger, determined to avoid the dinner hall for the same reason he nearly skipped breakfast.

"Looking for a new sword?"

He's testing the balance of a newly forged blade when a voice at the doorway startles him; he loses his grip on the weapon right as he's bringing it around in a slicing arc. It goes spiraling across the floor, skipping over the iron grating in a chaos of crashing metal and skittering sparks.

"Maker's breath!" he swears, in the moment before he looks up and further speech becomes impossible, the air suddenly arrested in his lungs. Evelyn stands in the doorway, flushed and distressed, eyes wide and pretty lips parted in an _O_ of surprise, her dark hair swinging as she side-steps out of the weapon's path.

His lungs unfreeze before his brain does. "My la -" He catches himself before that last disastrous syllable can escape his mouth. "Errr - Lady Trevelyan. _Inquisitor_." He lets his breath out in a huff. "Forgive me."

"I'm so sorry!" Evelyn cringes, embarrassed and contrite, as if she expects _him_ to be the one annoyed by her near-skewering. "I didn't mean to startle you."

She tosses her head, shaking her heavy hair back into place; it tumbles down her shoulders, and he finds himself staring dumbly. He's seen those shoulders bare - he's _touched_ them! - and the day that's passed has done nothing to diminish his sense of enchantment and awe. He's felt those taut muscles shifting beneath creamy, freckled skin, infusing his gloves with so much body heat that he could feel her warmth lingering on his fingers long after he was back in his own room, alone.... His fingers ache to reach for her anew, to sweep a stray lock of hair from her forehead, to cup her cheek and feel her warmth on his bare skin, without the gloves; he clenches his hands into tight fists at his side and swallows hard. "What are you -" He stops and sucks in a deep breath. "That is - I - "

 _Maker's breath!_ He's always been enough of a stammering idiot around her as it was; he hadn't thought it possible, but he's managed to make it _worse_. He lets out a strangled growl and tries again, with somewhat more success: "Can I help you?"

Fortunately Evelyn doesn't seem to notice his Void-cursed awkwardness; she's busy peering into the shadows of the room. With the forges dark, the room lies dull and smoky; the amber torchlight is as fluid and strained as the sunlight that ripples across the sand at the bottom of a bay, rolling and dim. "I came to talk to the blacksmith. Is he here?"

Cullen squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, trying to gain some semblance of composure. "Gone for the night, I believe."

"Oh." He opens his eyes to find her extending the fallen sword to him, hilt-first; he accepts it and wipes it clean on his surcoat before carefully replacing it on its rack. "What about you?" she says, politely making conversation. " _Are_ you looking for a new sword?"

He's not; he had come to ensure an adequate supply of weapons for a group of new recruits due to arrive in Skyhold next week, some cultists - or is it barbarians? - that the Inquisitor has convinced to join them. She has that effect on people everywhere she goes, inspiring them to do better, to be more. She'd been thrust into the role of Herald of Andraste through chance, but the Inquisitor? That is _all_ her.

"Er - maybe. Thinking about it." he stammers absurdly. "That is, I -" His mind is grinding to a halt. _Words_ ; he needs to find some, and quickly. What in the Void is wrong with him? He is extremely capable in his duties as the leader of the Inquisition's forces, he can face her as an equal across the map-strewn expanse of the war table and is more than articulate when debating the nuances of military strategy; yet he can't navigate a single chance encounter outside the walls of the council chamber without behaving like the greenest of recruits. He'd like to blame the new dynamic he's introduced to their relationship, this insane and foolish whim; but truth be told, it's been like this since day one.

She's waiting for him to finish, her blue eyes distracted and uncertain beneath a fringe of dark hair. He swallows, and goes on, "I, er, need to work out more." He picks up a shortsword and pretends to test its heft, stabbing it at nothing. "I'm, um, getting soft." He fights the urge to groan; _flames_ , what is wrong with him? "All this desk work." He gives his belly a self-disparaging pat and wants to crawl under the forge to die.

But she barely seems to notice his words; she looks preoccupied, her eyes wandering off to gaze at nothing in particular. Cullen wonders, suddenly, if she's thinking about the night before, and a blush rises beneath the stubble of his beard as he speculates over which memory, exactly, is causing that smallest of smiles that tugs at the corner of her mouth.

He wonders what she thinks of him, the _him_ he'd been the night before, not this fumbling wreck standing before her but the somehow completely different man he'd been in the midnight calm of her room. Had he gone too far, done too much? Not enough? Had he been what she wanted, or had he missed the mark completely? Was she regretting it now, in the light of day?

For her part, she'd been _glorious_ , exquisite, far more than he'd ever dared to dream of. He wants to rush right back to her room tonight - Maker, who is he kidding; he'd go _now_ if it were possible. He already feels her roaring in his veins, an addiction more potent than the lyrium ever was. The idea that he might have been anything less than that to her in return is a torment.

Then he sees her lift her fingers in a subconscious movement, idly touching the nape of her neck where he'd kissed her last night, and the tiny, indulgent smile spreads, growing slowly into something that holds a wonder and fascination to equal his own, and he _knows._

As much as he _should_ regret it himself, as much as it's apparently ruined his ability to perform as her advisor - or a functional human being, for that matter - he doesn't; he _can't_. Maker, how could he regret doing _anything_ that brings a smile like that to her face?

"I - " She seems startled, embarrassed as she comes back to her senses; she looks away, the tips of her ears turning pink. "I should go." she says, for once nearly as fumbling as he is. "Carry on, Commander."

It takes everything he has in him not to stop her, not to bury his hands in her hair and push her back against the wall, trapping her there with a grind of his hips, and it's only the knowledge that she wouldn't welcome such an advance from _Cullen_ that stays his hands. For the first time, the thought doesn't discourage him. He may not be what she needs _now_ , an hour past the dinner bell, but at midnight he will be _exactly_ what she wants, slipping into a thrilling new self like the donning of a cloak. The idea leaves him feeling electric, as he steps aside and politely bids the Inquisitor a good evening, concealing his smile until he's certain the door has closed behind her.

For midnight, he can wait.


	6. Chapter 6

As it turns out, he waits a few midnights before returning to Evelyn's quarters. He doesn't want to appear too eager, to overwhelm her and frighten her away; he's certain she must have doubts of her own to work through, and as much as he wants to spend every midnight - every possible _moment_ , for that matter - sharing candlelit intimacies in her rooms, waiting feels like the right thing to do, for both their sakes.

It isn't _only_ that he needs time to recover his nerve - though there is that, too - but there is something strangely delicious about watching her across the war table the next day, and the next, slowly losing her mind to an exquisite anticipation, mingled with a touch of trembling, fearful doubt. He takes a certain perverse pleasure in seeing her slowly unravel, as the days tick on without word from her mystery man, fumbling with papers and dropping map markers, jumping and blushing as her advisors startle her out of frequent private reveries.

Strangely, it helps. He may be a wreck himself, but in this they are, at last, equal.

He waits, but it doesn't stop him from longing; he fantasizes about slipping up to her room in the middle of the night, finding the blindfold among her things, gently knotting it around her eyes as she sleeps, and waking her with a warm press of lips against the neckline of her nightshirt and the slide of a glove on her thigh. The idea of her lying warm and sleep-tousled in her rumpled bed is even more a torment now that he's seen her there, bare and pliant and _willing_ , with his own eyes; it's torture, but he somehow makes it through three nights without losing his resolve, or his mind.

When he does come to her again, he does it properly, sneaking up to her quarters in a break between meetings to leave another ribbon-tied box on her bed, another long-stemmed rose, another simple note of warning.

The hours that follow are a torment to rival even the darkest of his days at Kinloch Hold. He skips dinner and paces his office like a caged lion, swinging from excitement to terror and back again as rapidly as a green recruit on the eve of his first battle. As midnight draws nearer he bathes and dresses with care, putting the final touches on his disguise and triple-checking the items in the basket he's packed just as the Chantry bell begins to toll the hour.

The sound still echoes across the valley as he steps out onto the causeway that bridges the courtyard, scanning nervously for the presence of sentries on the walls, or prying eyes anywhere. He usually avoids this shortcut so he won't have to make small talk with Solas, but at this hour the rotunda is silent and dark as he enters.   He slips through like a thief and makes his way across the empty throne room; soft ribbons of moonlight unfurl across the floor before the windows, long and silver-pale, like something from a dream. He still can't quite believe that he _isn't_ dreaming; the whole thing - the entire last week of his life, for that matter - feels like an exquisite dream, the kind you mourn the loss of when you wake, without quite remembering why.

He also still can't believe there are no guards posted at Evelyn's door, even at night. He would have this oversight remedied at once, if he weren't benefitting from it.

He reaches the top of her stairs at last, just a moment or two after the last peal of the bell has dissolved into silence, and finds her waiting. There is, again, a moment of terror as he enters her room, a fear that she might have refused to play the game, that she might be waiting without the blindfold to catch whoever comes through her door red-handed. But, no; the slip of black silk is in place around her eyes as she sits before the fire, and he is able to relax and pause for a moment with his hand on the newel post, simply taking in the scene he's waited these long days to return to.

Her quarters are aglow, washed in amber firelight like paving stones after a rain, but he barely notices the ethereal splendor of his surroundings; he only has eyes for her. She is dressed tonight in a pajama set of plum satin, so deep a shade that by contrast her skin appears as pale and radiant as the moon. The firelight toys with her like a child on a playground, sliding in golden streams down the long mahogany hair that tumbles loose over her shoulders, and dancing in the exquisite curves of her face. She is as beautiful as he has ever seen her, as beautiful as any woman has ever been.

She sits, as before, on her loveseat with her head held high, and only the slightest shaking of the hands folded in her lap betrays the nervousness that lies beneath her elegant facade. He hadn't noticed the tiny signs of fear on his previous visit; he'd been struck by how poised she'd been, so calm while he'd been terrified, and was awed by her strength. He sees them now, the trembling hands, the nervous tongue that darts out to wet her lips, and if anything it makes him feel _more_ proud of her; it is different kind of mettle, and perhaps a braver one, to be afraid of something and sit calmly anyway. He feels a surge of what he chooses to call admiration - it would be insane to call it anything else just yet - and it is all he can do to keep from rushing across the room to sweep her into his arms.

Instead he moves slowly, deliberately, across the floor, and she turns toward him as she hears the noise; a smile, small and uncertain, trembles at the corners of her mouth. "My lady," he says into the stillness of the room, and the smile blooms and lights her face; suddenly she is transformed from beautiful to _breathtaking_.

"You came back," she says, as if she hadn't quite believed he would.

He sets his basket aside and drops to one knee before her, reaching for her hand and closing gloved fingers around hers before lifting it to his mouth. "I told you I would, didn't I?" he murmurs as he dusts a kiss across her pale skin, following the sweep of his lips with his thumb, caressing each knuckle in slow circles in turn. He lifts his other hand to gently smooth her hair from her forehead, pushing his fingers into her tumbled tresses.

Evelyn sighs contentedly and leans in, and he deliberately shifts his posture so her forehead comes to rest lightly against his own. She lingers there for a long moment, a soft pressure against his forehead and a wisp of warm breath against his cheek, before drawing away in embarrassment, her cheeks turning pink beneath the dark slash of the blindfold.

Cullen smiles and follows as she withdraws, rising to sit beside her on the loveseat without releasing her hand or moving his fingers from where they've come to rest behind her ear. He strokes her cheek with his thumb, watching in fascination as her blush deepens by slow degrees at the back-and-forth glide of his glove. He wonders if anyone has ever touched her this way; he's certain she's not a virgin, yet the way she colors at such simple intimacy convinces him that she's never been touched the way she _deserves_ to be touched, with reverence and respect. He could spend a lifetime trying to right such an injustice, but he'll start with tonight; he slides his hand deeper into her hair and idly traces slow circles at the base of her skull with his fingertips, watching as her teeth sink into her lower lip in response.

"How was your day?" he asks as his fingers slip down the slender column of her neck, his knuckles grazing the tender hollow at the base of her throat before sliding so, so slowly back up to where they began, softly thumbing her earlobe. "Better than when we last spoke, I hope?"

"Much better," she says, and he's gratified by the shuddering breath that accompanies her words. "I had _you_ to look forward to, after all."

She's so charmingly, devastatingly sincere; it's all he can do to keep from surging forward and claiming her lips in a bruising kiss. He checks the impulse and slides his hand down the curve of her jaw, instead; his thumb brushes softly over her lips, and the way her mouth parts at his touch as if aching for more nearly undoes him. "My lady," he growls softly.

"It's not fair," she says, her lips moving against his thumb. She raises her hand, seeking to touch his face; he allows the barest brush of her fingertips across his cheek before capturing it and removing it before she can map his features or discover his scar. He threads his fingers through hers and squeezes reassuringly as he lowers their laced hands to her lap.   "I don't know what to call you." She swallows and squeezes his hand in return. "I _need_ a name to call you."

The implications are not lost on him; the thought of her crying out his name in the throes of passion sends a shock of heat to his belly. Cullen draws in a ragged breath. "I am but your servant, my lady," he says unsteadily.

"I want to know you," she whispers, and for a moment she looks so unhappy that he aches to kiss the pout from her lips. "Please, give me something. _Anything_." She moves her free hand as if to touch him again, but thinks better of it and returns her fisted fingers to the loveseat. "Will you answer one question for me? Just one?"

He swallows hard. It isn't like he wasn't expecting this - _who are you?_ \- yet it makes him deeply uneasy nonetheless. He's fairly certain she doesn't suspect him in particular; despite his fears she'd given no signs of speculation, no sneaking glances or undue attention as they worked together the past few days. If anything she noticed him _less_ , her mind off with her midnight lover somewhere clearly far, far away from Cullen, and for his own protection he'd prefer to keep it that way. But he's afraid to refuse her request outright; he's all too aware that if she grows impatient with their game, he's a single lift of the blindfold away from disastrous discovery.

She breathes hard and leans close, anticipating his answer, her grip on his fingers tightening slowly. Her pajama top is of a far more daring cut than her robe of their previous night, a generous swell of paper-pale cleavage heaving above the deep V neckline as she leans in, and _Maker's breath_ , does he really think he can deny her anything?

He closes his eyes. "As my lady wishes," he rasps.

There's a long pause, and he steels himself for the worst. Then she wets her lips with a dart of her tongue and asks: "Who do _you_ think the mystery man is, in Varric's book?"

It is the last thing he expects, and after a moment's shock he throws his head back and laughs deeply in surprise. "I know you've read it," she says, digging her toes into the side of his slipper when he can't stop laughing long enough to form a coherent reply. "You said you'd answer." She pouts pleadingly, but betrays herself with a few escaped hiccups of laughter of her own.

Personally Cullen agrees with Cassandra, that the most likely suspect is the master-at-arms, yet it would hit a little too close to home if he were to confess that. He casts about for an adequate response. "The dragonslayer," he chuckles at last.

"Oh?" she says teasingly. "The big hero? A bit too obvious, don't you think?"

"Perhaps," he says, his laughter melting into seriousness again. He reaches up and strokes her cheek with two gloved fingertips. "But she deserves no less."

She swallows, suddenly shy. "All right then," she says softly, and squeezes the hand that still holds hers. "My Dragonslayer."

Evelyn settles lightly against him, her leg brushing his where their clasped hands rest between them, her head tilting near his shoulder as if she wants to lay it there but can't quite bring herself to do so. He puts a tentative arm around her shoulders, toying gently with a lock of her hair, and feels, for a moment, purely and uncomplicatedly happy. "How about it, my lady?" he rumbles into her ear. "Any dragons you need me to slay?"

"Not unless you count my colleagues," she says dryly, and he chuckles.

"Is someone giving you a hard time?"

"No," she says. "Well ... maybe." She chews her bottom lip, wondering how much she can get away with telling him about her inner circle, then takes a deep breath and presses on. "There's this one guy who's always so cross with me," she says. "I startled him the other day and made him drop his sword, and he was just so _irritated_ and...."

Cullen's stomach clenches like a fist; she's talking about _him_. Maker's breath, had she _really_ interpreted his stammering awkwardness the other day in the smithy as annoyance? He presses his eyes closed as she continues to describe the event in question and remembers how apologetic she'd been that day, how _timid_ , as if she'd thought of Cullen not as her dragonslayer, but as the dragon itself.

"And ... I realize how ridiculous this must sound," she falters. She releases her breath in a huff. "I'm sorry. I know it's stupid, to let something like this get to me when the Inquisition has so many other concerns - "

He barely hears her; his pulse roars in his ears. He wants to beg her forgiveness, to plead with her to see him - Cullen - differently, to understand. He wants to tear off her blindfold and throw himself at her feet.

But on the other hand ... this is good, isn't it? He doesn't want her to suspect him of being her midnight visitor; if he can encourage her to dismiss him as a possibility, it reduces his chances of ever being caught. It would mean he can continue to keep her company in the still hours beyond midnight, and that is everything; would it matter what she thought of him by day, as long as she still wants him by night?

He looks at her upraised face, her parted lips, her flushed cheeks beneath the dark band that conceals her eyes, and swallows hard.

"Forget him," he says brusquely. "He sounds like a real arse." He softens, raising their clasped hands and pressing a lingering kiss to her knuckles. "Anyone worthy of your time wouldn't treat you so poorly."

She lets out a shuddering chuckle. "I'm sorry," she says again. "It's just - " She sighs heavily. "It's been a long week." She turns away, uncertain, but he can still see her blush creep along the shell of her ear. "I missed you," she admits softly.

Cullen tries to push away the churning disquiet he feels over his decision, and reaches for the basket at his feet. "Fortunately I brought a gift to make up for it," he tells her.

He produces a pint of perfect ripe strawberries and a split of quality Verchiel champagne. Both were acquired by calling in a few of the many old favors he's owed around Skyhold, but it would have been worth _any_ price to see the delighted smile that brightens her face at the mention of unexpected treats. He's not sure whether it's anger or grief that colors his joy at her pleasure; is her life truly so grim here, that small luxuries - like small caresses - are so sorely lacking?

He places a flute of champagne in her hand and carefully curls her fingers around the stem, and they manage to drink to a whispered toast with linked arms and a lot of giggling; but when she reaches for a berry he gently eases her hand aside and lifts a flawless red fruit directly to her mouth. She pauses, her breath quickening, and he wishes more than anything that he could see the look in her eyes as she parts her trembling lips for him and tastes the berry with a questing flick of her tongue. He shudders as her juice-pinked lips close around the fruit in his fingers when she takes an elegant bite, watches the muscles in her exquisite neck constrict as she swallows, and Maker's _fucking_ breath she is the most lovely thing he's ever seen, blushing and beautiful.

The next berry he soaks in his champagne glass before offering it to her, holding it by the stem to keep the moisture from his gloves as he presses it to her mouth. He gently teases her with it, rubbing it delicately against the bow of her lip, pulling it away as she tries to bite, and they share soft, heady giggles that slowly dissolve into an exquisite, breathless tension as they play, leaning nearer to each other with each teasing touch, each soft-mouthed nip.

Then she bites into a berry and a bead of ruby juice escapes. Cullen watches in rapt fascination as it slides along the curve of her jaw and trails down the slender slope of her neck, glowing as it captures and holds the firelight like an orb of molten flame against her throat. It comes to rest in the tender hollow at the join of her collarbone, where her pulse flutters wildly beneath paper-thin skin. He lifts his hand idly, meaning to sweep it away with a brush of his thumb, but something gives him pause.   After a long moment of wavering hesitation he leans in, instead, and catches the bead of moisture with a soft press of his tongue.

She gives a jerking start beneath him, taken by surprise by the sudden heat of his mouth and his breath on her skin; he feels, more than hears, her gasping draw of breath. He almost wonders if he's gone too far, been too bold, but before he can draw away her hand slides up his chest and fists in the fabric of his shirt, holding him in place; he needs no further encouragement. With delectable slowness he drags his tongue up the elegant line of her neck, feeling his stubble rasp softly against her pale throat as he follows the slender trail of juice that glistens on her skin. She trembles against him in an anticipation that nearly borders on fear; her throat flexes beneath his tongue as she swallows, a soft mewling moan escaping her lips.

He traces his way softly over the curve of her jaw, chasing the line of moisture back to its start as she lets out a shuddering breath. He's trembling as badly as she is, now, his heart quaking in his chest like something small and feral caught in a hunter's snare as his tongue flicks gently against the corner of her mouth. He hesitates there, his lips a mere parchment's width from hers, and waits. He cannot, will not, go further without her consent; the next move _has_ to be hers. "My lady," he whispers haltingly.

For the span of a few heartbeats there is nothing but exquisite stillness, the warmth of her hand against his chest, the snap of a log in the fire.

Then the fingers that grip his tunic tighten and pull him a scant hairsbreadth closer; their lips brush softly together, and he is utterly lost. He raises both hands to cup her face, thumbing her cheeks tenderly as he grazes her mouth again and again in slow, breathy strokes. He's aware, vaguely, of their glasses hitting the floor, champagne soaking into the berry-strewn rug, but he can't be bothered to care; nothing matters but the softness of her juice-stained lips on his own, the fruit-sweet taste of her as she sighs against his mouth.

 _He's kissing her_. Maker's breath, for all the times he's fantasized about this moment, he's never dared to dream it might actually _happen_ ; he's had but a few sips of alcohol, yet he feels utterly drunk, his head spinning in a haze of emotion and awe. She melts against him, and _Maker_ her body feels like heaven as it leans into his, supple and warm and beautifully _real_.

He strokes one gloved hand along her jaw, tilting her face so he can deepen the kiss, the other sliding back to fist gently in her hair. He traces her lips with his tongue, tasting and teasing and nipping softly, even though there is no need to coax; she's open-mouthed and gasping against him, ready to give him anything, _everything_ he asks for. He aches to push her down and claim her savagely, but he's determined to savor this moment for all that it's worth, terrifyingly convinced that he may never have this chance again, may never again know the feel of her lips quivering against his when he slowly lets his tongue slide against hers as he presses into her mouth.

She moans against him and her body arches; he feels the firm swells of her breasts press into his chest, her nipples taut against the thin fabric of her shirt, and it nearly undoes him. He wraps an arm around her waist and hitches her closer, groaning as she sprawls against him, nearly in his lap; her arms snake up around his neck, and he barely has the presence of mind to capture her hand and stop her before she can card her fingers in his incriminatingly curly hair. He deposits her hand on his shoulder instead, and skims his own up and down the length of her back, feeling her body writhe beneath his gloves as he drinks deeply from her mouth.

 _Maker_ , she feels good. She's such a delicious dissonance, a contradiction of soft curves and firm muscles, of astonishing strength and trembling vulnerablity. He aches to unwrap her slowly and discover every part of her, outside and in; to know her as well as he knows himself, every angle and freckle and dimple, every want and weakness and shuddering need. He's one more arching moan away from throwing her down on the bed and exploring her, testing and teasing and coaxing until he knows exactly what makes her gasp and shiver, and Maker help him, he's pretty certain he shouldn't.

He breaks off the kiss and buries his face in the hollow of her throat, gasping for breath. What in the world is he doing? This was never supposed to go so far; this wasn't his intention, when he scribbled the first _midnight_ on the first card.   He'd thought she needed company, someone to make her feel special and wanted, someone to rub her shoulders and ease her aches after a long day bent over the war table. He'd never dreamed she needed _this_ so badly, and he's shocked and astonished and more than a little overwhelmed.

And, if he's truly honest with himself, he's angry. How had they let this happen? The Inquisition had been so meticulous about making sure everyone's needs are met, from rations to weapons to smallclothes for even the least of the troops. And yet nobody had thought to make sure _she_ had what she needed. How could they - himself included - have left her so lacking?

He mouths her neck, tasting the salt on her skin, and she whimpers. " _Please_ ," she says, without being able to articulate quite what she's pleading for. " _Maker_ , please...."

If he's going to go - _if_ \- he needs to leave now. He cups her face in his hands, strokes her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. "My lady," he husks, watching how her parted lips take shape around her gasping breaths. Her skin is flushed and dewy, tiny beads of sweat glittering on her brow. "Do you want me to - that is - " He groans and leans in, pressing his nose to her neck and gently suckling her earlobe before trying again. "Tell me to go, and I will," he whispers hoarsely into her ear.

There is no hesitation in her answer. She draws back, her hair tumbling over her shoulders and her arms still locked around Cullen's neck, as if she knows how important it is that he sees her, _truly_ sees her, honest and _sure_ as she whispers:

" _Stay._ "


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for someone being pinned down/restrained near the end of the chapter.

_Stay_.

The word is barely out of Evelyn's mouth when her world upends. Her mystery man slides an arm beneath her knees, his other arm curling protectively around the small of her back, and he lifts her into the air as easily as if she were a rag doll. She lets out a startled gasp, tightening her arms around his neck, and clings to him breathlessly as he carries her the few paces from the loveseat to her bed.

She's shaking, her heart drumming wildly as she buries her face in the folds of his shirt and stifles a sob of relief against his shoulder. The entire night has been a series of releases she hadn't known she needed, from the tender intimacies of sweet, reverent touches to the exquisite elation of that kiss ... oh Maker, _that kiss_ , so much fascination and aching, longing need all distilled into one moment of perfect trembling bliss. And now he's _staying_ , when she'd been so certain he'd leave her wanting again; he's still there with her, and the sheer relief of it makes her want to weep into the hollow of his neck.

Instead she nestles against him like a child and presses her lips to his chest through his shirt, inhaling the spicy, soapy scent that lingers on his skin. She's overwhelmed and quaking, strangely terrified by the sheer intensity of what he makes her feel even while she's aching and eager for more; she's overcome with an emotion she cannot yet give name to. She rubs her cheek against his chest and is astonished to feel how erratically his heart beats, how jaggedly he draws his breath. He's trembling beneath her like a curled leaf trying to cling to a branch through an autumn storm, and it strikes her that he is every bit as awed and terrified as she is.

By the Maker, this is _real._ He could fake a lot of things to get close to her; he could fake conversation and kisses, emotion and need. But he cannot fake the shudder that cleaves his lungs or alter the wild pounding of his pulse; whatever _else_ it may be to him, whatever ulterior motives or artifice may have brought him to her rooms, he genuinely wants her, honestly _needs_ her. She presses her mouth against the tender skin of his throat to test the theory, and with the single shivering swallow that answers, a layer of doubt slips free and spirals away like a handkerchief loosed in a breeze.

He reaches the bed and settles her onto the mattress with consummate care, and she nearly _does_ weep then. He handles her like she's something exquisite, a fragile object he's afraid of breaking as he adjusts the fabric of her sleeve and gently arranges her hair on the pillow. It is so _different_ from the way she's accustomed to being treated in her other life as Inquisitor; she's expected to be strong and brave and certain, to hold up the people around her and bear their burdens, always shoring them up so they do not fall apart. She is never allowed to simply be fragile herself; that he fills this need, or even that he sees it at all, is an unexpected gift.

It amazes her, how he seems to know what she needs even before she knows it herself. She remembers the last time they met, how she'd wanted so much more only to be astonished by the beautiful satisfaction and relief she'd found in his affection and intimacy. So when he leans in close and murmurs against her ear, "Tell me what you need, my lady," she doesn't respond with the ' _take me_ ' that might have escaped her lips just moments before. She realizes what she truly needs, here and now, is the simple permission to be fragile in the presence of his strength, a place to safely shatter apart.

"Hold me," she whispers.

She feels the mattress shift as he slides onto the bed beside her, feels his warmth as she's drawn gently into the circle of his arms. He eases her onto her side, the two of them facing each other as she lies trembling against his chest, one of his arms under her, cradling her close, while the other slides along her sleeve, gloved fingertips rubbing soft circles along the length of her arm.

Oh _Maker_ , but he's fit. Until he picked her up earlier she'd had only fleeting impressions of what his body might be like, but now, held firm against his chest, she can feel his body shift against hers, all solid strength and flexing muscle and radiant heat. It sends a flush of want straight to her core; what other marvels is his body capable of, if he could lift and carry her so effortlessly? She aches to touch him, to explore and taste and know him, to learn his body until teasing a moan from him is as easy as plucking a shivering note from the string of her bow.

But when she lifts a hand to cup his face she's rebuffed, her fingers gently yet firmly pushed away. She wonders what he's hiding, what he doesn't want her to touch - his ears, perhaps? Could he be an elf? She finds herself aching to know, for what feels like the millionth time, just who he is. His reluctance to let her touch him has her wondering now, her mind skimming over the possibilities, the reasons he might feel he needs to hide who or what he is from her.

She is more inclined to believe, now, that he really is an admirer who needed the permission of the blindfold to approach her; the erratic fluttering of his heartbeat against her chest all but confirms how far out of his depth he truly is. Yet that leaves as many questions as it answers; _why_ didn't he feel worthy of approaching her before he gleaned the idea of the blindfold from Varric's book? Is it a matter of status, someone below her noble rank? Is he too old for her, or too young? Or is it a matter of appearance? Could he be disfigured, like the hero in the ballet her mother once dragged her to see, or perhaps just plain physically unattractive?

And would it truly _matter_ , if he were any of those things?

His hand has slowly made its way up the slope of her shoulder and the curve of her neck, and it now warms her jaw, his thumb stroking her cheek softly. "My lady," he whispers reverently as he tilts her face and gently touches his lips to hers.

She lets out a sigh of sheer, blessed relief and leans into his touch as his mouth grazes hers in a slow, deep rhythm, an achingly eloquent dance that feels less like a kiss and more like a prayer. _It doesn't matter_ , she thinks fiercely as her head starts to swim with dizzy longing, her eyelashes beginning to go starry with tears beneath the blindfold. It doesn't matter who or what he is, not in the slightest. Whatever else he is, however flawed he may be, he is her midnight lover, her dragonslayer, and that is _everything_ she wants and needs.

And _oh Maker_ , he makes her feel so incredibly wanted in return. _Needed_. Not needed in the way the rest of Skyhold needs her, full of demands and expectations, but simply for herself, just as she is. It's there in the way he shudders and gasps against her lips, in the way his hand trembles as he maps the contours of her face with ghosting fingers, in the way he pauses and draws away as if to look at her, his breath catching audibly as he gently tucks a stray wisp of hair behind her ear.

When a long moment passes without the return of his mouth to hers, she presses her hand to the front of his shirt, fingers tangling in the fabric, and whispers uncertainly, "What's wrong?"

His fingers slide warm and reassuring down the slope of her neck, his thumb gently brushing her earlobe. "You're just so _beautiful_ ," he rasps, all raw honesty and trembling wonder, and she surges forward to blindly seek his lips once more, so deeply and utterly moved.

He meets her halfway, his lips searing against hers as he rolls her onto her back and gently presses her down into the mattress. He kisses her slowly, deeply, the movement of his mouth on hers fraught with restrained, aching hunger yet strangely undemanding all the same. He seems determined to take his time and savor her; rather than the flashfire encounters of her past, selfish lovers consumed with urgent greed, he is content to burn her like a candle, watching her melt inch by inch, making her gutter and glow under the heat of his mouth, and _Maker_ it is exquisite. She's never known a man to give so much, and ask so little; she feels utterly, stunningly _cherished_ as she dissolves into his kisses, surrendering to his tender worship.

He slides his hands along her jaw, thumbing her cheeks, his fingers tangling in her hair; it's as if, now that he's finally given himself permission to truly _touch her_ , he can't stop. She aches so badly to touch him in return, to feel the shape of him, to gain some sense, however small, of the man that lies beyond the barrier of the blindfold. It's so hard to stay her hands when they try to reach, of their own accord, for his face, but she clenches them into fists and lowers them before he has a chance to notice what she's up to and object; she wants - _needs_ \- him to trust her as deeply as she's coming to trust him, to know that she won't break his unspoken rules. Instead she wraps her arms around his back, letting her palms rest in the curve between his shoulder blades, and while she feels him tense slightly beneath her hands, he allows it.

He breaks from her mouth to press a trail of hot kisses along the slope of her neck, and when he finds a tender spot that makes her squirm, she feels his mouth arch into a smile against her throat. He nips her there, rubbing his stubbly jaw against her until she's writhing and giggling beneath him. An answering chuckle rumbles up through his chest, and _Maker_ it is a beautiful thing. It's such an unexpected joy to find that they can tease and play, bending and yielding as they tread the currents of desire instead of breaking beneath the weight of its waves. It is simply so _easy_ to be with him, stranger though he may be. She thinks back to earlier, when she'd managed to startle a genuine laugh from him, one breathtaking moment where he wasn't hiding behind whatever airs he puts on to mask his identity but was purely, authentically, _himself_. The idea that this man, in addition to becoming her lover, might also be her _friend_ is something she wasn't prepared for, yet here, in the stillness of midnight, it feels true.

Her hands fist in the fabric of his shirt as he explores her neck with his mouth, moving unhurried over every inch of tender skin in turn, swirling his tongue against her throat and razing the join of her shoulder with his teeth. The advance of his lips is like the spread of a creeping vine, heat slowly curling through her veins like branching tendrils slowly unfurling to the warmth of a springtime sun, until she is gasping and moaning beneath the weight of his mouth. Her back arches off the bed as he grazes his way down, pausing to trace the hollows of her collarbone with a warm press of tongue; she whimpers and bites back the urge to beg, to dig her nails into his muscled back and urge him on, faster, harder, _more_.

Instead she lets him set the pace, and he laves an exquisite path over her body, leaving a snail's trail of bite-pinked flesh and tongue-damp skin in his wake. His lips eventually reach the deep V of her pajama top's neckline, his breath catching audibly in his throat as he presses searing open-mouthed kisses to the milk-pale skin that swells there. She feels him touch the first in the long row of tiny pearl buttons that begins there, rolling it between two gloved fingers, and he hesitates for such a long moment that she fears he's on the verge of abandoning her again.

"My lady," he whispers thickly, at last. "May I?"

A rush of new warmth thrills through her and she nods, not trusting her voice to be any steadier than his. He lets out a shuddering breath and thumbs open that first button, then the next, moving with exquisite slowness along the row of delicate pearls. It feels like a small eternity passes as he exposes her by half-inches, time measured out in the stuttering beats of her heart as he unwraps her like a child savoring a ribbon-tied gift on Satinalia morning. There is such deep intimacy in his trembling touch, so much reverence in the shivering breaths that escape his lungs. He's only parted her shirt by an inch or two, exposing a slender vertical stripe of skin, starkly pale against the dark plum satin, yet when the final button slides free she feels bared clear down to her soul.

She feels the mattress shift as he moves, reaching for something she can't see, and she waits, her body taut and quivering. It is an exquisite thrill, unlike anything she's ever known, to lie in such a state of delicious contradiction, lost to blindness and yet more acutely aware than she's ever been before, certain that his searing touch is about to light somewhere on her body but unable to anticipate quite _where_. She feels incandescent, her nerves singing in expectation beneath her goosefleshed skin, her muscles tensing and stomach knotting in suspense.

The touch, when it comes, is neither where nor _what_ she expects. For an achingly long moment, nothing happens, until she's nearly mad with anticipation; then something brushes against her parted lips, velvet-soft and feather-light. She gasps, her neck arching off the bed, head tilting back into the pillow as he slowly teases her mouth with - with _what?_ \- the way he tormented her with the berries earlier, rubbing soft as a whisper against the bow of her lip. It takes her a moment to figure out what he's reached for, until she finally reminds herself to breathe and inhales the scent of a flower, and remembers the long-stemmed rose he'd delivered with his note, in its box on her bedside table.

He slowly traces the rose over her chin and along the tender skin of her upraised throat, pausing now and then to give the stem a twist so the petals will roll and flutter against her skin. She swallows thickly, shivering as her toes curl against the coverlet. He takes his time in this, as in all things, teasing her neck, the shell of her ear, and she feels her nerves shimmer and tingle in his wake as if he is painting her with a brush dipped in magelight, soft and electric.

His trajectory is achingly, eloquently slow as he drags the soft-petaled rose along her body, tracing that narrow band of milky skin revealed by her unbuttoned shirt. She squirms as the petals flute between her still-covered breasts, a soft moan of sheer _want_ escaping her throat. She knows, now, exactly which section of _Midnight at Starkeep_ he is trying to emulate, a very early scene featuring a griffon feather and a mystery man still hesitant to lay unworthy hands upon his queen, and she wants to tell her dragonslayer that he doesn't have to play this game. She is not a queen to be revered; he doesn't need to treat her this way, for she doesn't _deserve_ it. Yet she cannot bring herself to speak the words, to tell him to touch her, take her, _use_ her; she may not think herself special, but here in the small hours beyond midnight, as he lavishes her with such unhurried desire, such breathless devotion, he almost makes her believe that she is.

He traces lower, skimming her belly, and she feels herself splinter by slow inches, a tingling warmth slowly webbing forth from wherever he's touched her like the latticework cracks on the glazed skin of an old porcelain doll. The velvety petals roll against her skin, dipping into her navel, and her muscles jump in response. She's never felt anything like this, anticipation spun out until it is a slender, shimmering thread, stretched taut and ready to snap.

When he reaches the band of her pajama pants she sucks in a shuddering breath, _hoping_ , but she's not terribly surprised when he stops there and reverses course, sliding the soft petals back up the flat muscles of her stomach. She's already half-resigned to the probability that he's gone as far as he will go tonight, aware that he's already well out of his comfort zone, and as much as she _needs_ him, she's strangely at peace with the idea of moving slowly. So it rather takes her by surprise when he slips the rose under one side of her parted pajama top, catching the fabric and gently nudging it aside, exposing her by slow degrees until the satin finally yields and slides away, revealing a pert, pale breast.

He draws in a ragged gasp. "Maker's breath," he husks, and his voice sounds strange - oddly familiar, even - as his careful control slips for a moment. There's something recognizable there that she doesn't quite have the presence of mind to fully grasp, yet when he speaks again it is gone and his discipline restored, but barely. "I ... you're...." She feels the petals of the flower trace the plump swell at the underside of her breast, and she lets out a shuddering sigh as he growls in frustration above her.

"What's wrong?" she asks, the words nearly lost to a whimper of need.

The buttery petals skim slowly over her skin, soft against soft. " _Words,_ " he rasps unsteadily. "To call you _beautiful_ hardly seems enough." The rose swirls in lazy circles around her breast, until she's arching her back off the mattress to meet its touch, half mad with wanting, but stops just shy of brushing its aching peak. "You're _exquisite_ ," he says, his voice so low in his chest that she feels the rumble of it clear to her toes.

The flower slides away, and she lets out a mewl of protest. " _Radiant_ ," he says, and she can feel the heat of his breath feather across her skin as he leans close, clearly enthralled as he memorizes the curves of her body. The rose trails across her milky skin and catches the other side of her pajama top; he unwraps her there just as slowly, brushing the fabric aside with a drawn-out sweep. The satin falls aside at last, revealing her other breast, and although she is still far from naked, she's never felt so exposed. She's been unclothed in the presence of other men before, yet this time seems so very different; Maker, why does this feel like _so much more_?

" _Mesmerizing,_ " he says thickly, letting the rose petals deliver slow caresses by proxy, stroking this breast with the same endless patience and fascination as the first, until she's gasping and aching, lips parted as she tilts her head back into her pillow. " _Perfection,_ " he says, and he sounds so sincere, so convicted, that she can almost believe it. "Maker's breath, you're so ... you're just so...."

Whatever word he's searching for is lost to a groan as he surges forward and seals his scalding mouth over the rosebud peak of her breast, sucking hard on her aching nipple. It's the last thing she expects, and she lets out a cry of shock and desire as all the gently tingling magelight he's traced onto her skin ignites at once into a searing blaze of urgent need. She arches up into him, fisting her hands in the coverlet as he rolls his tongue over her, all silky pressure and wet heat, and it's _glorious_ , made all the better for the knowledge that she's broken his control, that this is happening because he wants her, _needs_ her as badly as she needs him.

He cups her other breast in his hand and _mercy_ his hands are amazing, all strength and blazing heat and big enough to cover her completely as he rolls over her skin slowly, thumbing her nipple into a throbbing peak. His other hand slides beneath her head, cradling her gently, gloved fingers rubbing warm circles into the base of her skull and tangling in her hair, and she's struck by the gesture, for his need to support and protect her even as he unmakes her.

He mouths her until she's whining incoherently, her head turned so her cries are nearly muffled by his arm, then releases her with a reluctant groan, shifting his hand to rub comfort into the bite-pinked skin he's just abandoned. He moves his lips to her other breast and laves open-mouthed kisses across it, swirling his tongue against her skin then breathing heat and blowing cold across the trail of damp, thrilling her with contrasting waves of fever and chill, of touch and withdrawal until she's begging brokenly, in words that aren't quite words, her every nerve alight and crying for release.

It's nearly maddening how damnably _patient_ he is, even when his control is shaken; he makes his way down her body again with that same excruciating slowness, though underscored with a taut urgency now, sucking and nipping the porcelain skin of her stomach, seeking out scattered freckles and raking them with his teeth before soothing the marks he leaves with a warm press of tongue. His hand slides from her head down the length of her spine, cupping the arching small of her back as he bites at the tender skin of her navel, and she feels the way his fingers tremble as they fist in the bunched fabric of her shirt, how _terrified_ he is beneath his need.

His hands move lower to frame her waist, thumbs tracing soft circles against her sides, and he hesitates there for an eternally long moment, his gasping breaths gusting low across her belly. She holds her own breath, so certain he is going to panic and bolt, leaving her here aching and distraught, and she wants to weep and plead at the thought, no longer so content to take things slow; _Maker_ , how she needs him. She waits, as tense and quivering as a bowstring in the instant before an arrow takes flight, ready to promise anything to any god that might be listening, if only he will _stay_....

Then his thumbs slide gently beneath the waistband of her pajama pants, and she lets out a broken sob. " _Yes_ ," she groans, granting the consent she knows he needs before he can lose the nerve to ask. She hears him swallow hard, feels him quake against her as he ghosts his lips lower, softly mouthing her through the satin of her pajamas. She slides her legs apart for him, and it's all she can do to check the impulse to arch and grind into him as he deliberately gusts a searing breath against her aching core.

"Please," she moans, barely coherent as she writhes against the mattress. " _Please._ "

He presses the tip of his tongue to her, hot and searching, sliding through the folds of her pajama bottoms, inexpertly seeking out her aching nub through the damp cloth. She mewls, hands clawing at the coverlet as he makes contact, rolling his tongue around her throbbing clit and _Maker_ she feels electric, bright with arcing need. He suckles her through the fabric, his thumbs inching her waistband down over her hipbones, and without thinking she reaches for him, her hands skimming his sweat-slicked brow as she mindlessly seeks to bury her fingers in his hair....

He growls and catches both her wrists in one strong gloved hand before she has a chance to meet her aim, and it takes her completely by surprise. She gasps loudly, her pulse roaring in her ears as he surges abruptly upward, like a big cat lunging for its prey, pinning her hands to the mattress above her head. "My lady," he rasps warningly against her ear, his voice low and dangerous, and she's certain he won't hurt her - he's holding her loosely enough that she could easily slide her hands free if she chooses - yet a thrill of dark excitement rushes through her all the same, all anticipation and raw, charged need.

He leans in and seals his mouth to hers, and she whimpers impatiently against his lips. She can feel him trembling against her, fighting a battle between uncertainty and want, desire and fear, and _damn him_ for being so maddeningly determined to maintain his control when she _needs_ him so badly. He kisses her slowly, deeply, with that same consummate, unhurried care, but there's an edge of hardness to his kiss that wasn't there before, and it pushes the heat of her desire even lower in her belly until she's overwrought, nearly consumed by it.

His free hand cups her face, thumb tracing the edge of the blindfold as he nips at her lips and teases them with the tip of his tongue; then his fingers drift lower, trailing lightly down her body. She gasps as he rubs one of her nipples to a throbbing peak with his knuckles, then moans into his mouth as his fingers skim along the flat of her stomach and lower yet, ghosting against her slit over the cloth of her pants.

He presses his tongue into her mouth as he teases her, circling two knuckles against her aching nub, and she arches clear off the mattress, her hands fisting in the bedsheets above her head. He swallows the gasping, whimpering sounds she makes, her mewls of pleasure and need, and drinks deeply from her mouth, his tongue sliding slick and hot against hers, as his fingers twist slowly, _slowly,_ pushing against her sex a bit more firmly with each passing stroke.

Oh _Maker_ , this man, this sweet, generous, gorgeous, _impossible_ man; she feels herself starting to splinter, threads of tension and hunger and raw aching _need_ braiding together so tautly in her core that the pleasure of it borders on pain, and it's all _him_. She moans as she sinks deeper into his kisses, the searing weight of his mouth against hers driving her to the brink of madness as he explores her softly with his tongue, and she leans into the heat of his body, her hands flexing against the fingers that grip her wrists above her head. She does not know his face, yet she's convinced, in this moment, that he's the sexiest man she's ever known, her mystery lover, her dragonslayer.

She grinds her hips into the hand that cups her sex, the pads of his fingertips rolling now in slow, patient circles against her clit. She wails incoherently against his mouth as she chases the heat that presses ever tighter in her belly, until he shudders and bites down on her lip and she feels herself _shatter_ , falling to dust like the shimmering orbs of mana residue that spiral back to the Fade after the casting of a spell.

She turns her face against him, sobbing into the hollow of his neck. He releases her hands at once and gathers her up, rolling her gently into the heat of his arms. She clings to him like a child, her arms sliding around him, hands riding low against the hollow of his back, and he holds her close, rubbing warm, comforting circles into her spine until her shuddering subsides.

"My lady," he husks unsteadily into her ear. His breath gusts in quivering gasps against her neck; he seems as deeply shaken as she is, perhaps even more. "I didn't mean - I'm sorry -"

"Don't be," she whispers against the salt-damp skin of his throat, her arms tightening around his waist. She's positive he never intended to go this far tonight, and she feels a sudden twist of guilt for urging him on beyond his limits; for a moment her heart stutters, alight with fear, and she wonders if she's lost his respect or frightened him away.

Then he gently cups her face in his hand, thumbing her cheek softly, and turns it so he can press his forehead to hers. For a moment they shudder there together, swallowing each others' breath, so near that she can feel his eyelids brush against the cloth of the blindfold when he blinks. She hears him swallow thickly as he traces stray wisps of her hair and tucks them, one by one, behind her ears. "Maker's breath, you're beautiful," he breathes at last, and when he presses in to softly crush his lips to hers, the kiss is filled with such yearning, aching sweetness that every last shred of her uncertainty slips away.

 _Maker_ , she could love this man.

He stays with her in the still silence that follows, dotting her face, her lips, her neck with slow, tender kisses, raking his trembling fingers through her hair, until a drowsy, sated leadenness seeps into her veins. She nestles against his chest, feeling his gloved fingertips stripe trails of warmth up and down the long line of her back as they slide beneath her still-open shirt, and listens to the dying fire gutter and crackle across the room.

"Who are you?" she whispers into the crook of his arm.

There's a long pause as his breath stirs her hair, warm at her temple. "I am a man who wishes to please you," he murmurs thickly, at last, and for now, as she drifts off in his arms - _for now_ \- it is enough.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so very much for all your comments and support. I may not always be the best at responding to messages, but please know that I treasure every single word. ❤
> 
> Also, it occurs to me that I have been extremely remiss in posting the all the amazing [art](http://ladydanya.tumblr.com/tagged/fan-art) that's been inspired by Midnight at Skyhold. Please go check these beauties out, and give the artists all the love and praise they deserve:
> 
> [This painting](http://ladysummerisle.tumblr.com/post/129769057104/my-finished-painting-inspired-by) by [ladysummerisle](http://ladysummerisle.tumblr.com)  
> [This sketch](http://lonyn.tumblr.com/post/128169408595/just-some-sketchy-fanart-for-ladydanya-s-fic) by [lonyn](http://lonyn.tumblr.com)  
> [This drawing](http://carijem.tumblr.com/post/127204941369/inspired-by-midnight-at-skyhold-by-the-lovely) and [this one](http://carijem.tumblr.com/post/126298902034/dear-ladydanya-im-a-big-fan-of-your-midnight) by [carijem](http://carijem.tumblr.com)  
> [This sketch](http://cute-ellyna.tumblr.com/post/125469302505/fanfics-i-did-would-stay-awake-till-4am-to-read-a) by [cute-ellyna](http://cute-ellyna.tumblr.com)  
> [This render](http://alma-enigmatica.tumblr.com/post/124543478363/my-new-image-with-cullen-and-delylah-inspired-by) by [alma-enigmatica](http://alma-enigmatica.tumblr.com)
> 
> (Posted in reverse chronological order - not playing favorites, I couldn't pick a favorite if I tried. Seriously, I have cried over every one of these. You people are all beautiful and I don't deserve you. ❤)

Skyhold is silent and sparkling when Cullen heads out into the chill dawn air the next morning; it glitters beneath the soft fingers of new light that spill over the battlements, illuminating the crisp layer of hoarfrost that has settled on its grounds as the Inquisition slept. For a moment Cullen simply breathes, inhaling the scent of campfire smoke from the valley below, and runs his fingers through his bed-tousled hair, wondering what in the world he is going to _do_.

Ordinary life, on a morning that feels so _extraordinary_ , is out of the question. The thought of going to breakfast makes his stomach tighten like a clenching fist; there is no way he can possibly face Evelyn again so soon, not even at a distance from across the mess hall, with all the emotions that skirl through him so new and unexamined. His mind flurries with the sights and sounds of the night before, of _her;_ she runs through him like the first blissful jolt of a lyrium dose, singing hot and buttery-smooth in his veins. The memory of each soft sigh, each trembling kiss, each inch of flawless, blush-stained skin yielding to the inquisitive press of his fingertips haunts him, consumes him.

Yet in the light of day, he burns with guilt for his excesses the night before. He'd tried his hardest to give his lady what she needed without taking for himself, but _Maker_ it was impossible to fully keep his control with her so pliant and writhing beneath his hands. The liberties he took in touching her, tasting her, _pinning her to the bed_ \- oh _Maker_ , what in the world had he been thinking? He lifts his hands to his face, pressing fisted knuckles to his mouth. It wasn't supposed to be this way; he's horrified at how readily he'd surrendered his resolve, how rapidly he'd gone from gentleman suitor to ravaging beast, pouncing on her like a meat-starved wolf at the slightest of encouragements. All it had taken was the smallest signs of need, the softest of mewling whimpers and the sweetest aching sighs and he'd been swept away in her transcendent wonder, powerless to resist. Oh, Maker preserve him, but he couldn't deny her.

He leans on an embrasure, letting the chill of the stone leach into his armor, and considers heading to the chapel to offer himself up in contrition and prayer. But the images that fill his sight are not exactly holy ones - he sees her spread out on her bed like an elegant offering to some pagan god, sees a slim band of milky skin emerge as he parts the buttons of her shirt, sees a flawless alabaster breast in the instant before he decides he can't live another moment without tasting its clenching rose-dust peak, and it leaves him feeling deeply conflicted and confused. These are not holy thoughts and yet, somehow, nothing in his life has ever felt so divine as the release he'd coaxed from her body, nothing as hallowed as the moment she lay radiant and gasping in his arms.

He strolls instead across the ramparts, watching the eastern horizon slowly soften and separate into ribbons of rose and plum, unraveling under the gentle upward press of the morning sun, and loses himself to thought. His emotions are manifest in the shaking of his hands, in the way his breath catches, _still_ , in his lungs all these hours later, when a particularly vivid image surfaces from the pool of his memory like a leaping fish disturbing the stillness of a sun-gilded pond.

He'd held her in his arms mere hours ago, softly easing her with nuzzled kisses and tender touches, listening to her breath soften and grow steady until he was certain she'd fallen asleep. He hadn't wanted to break from the blissful warmth of her body against his, the comfortable weight of her head on his shoulder, so he remained a long while, simply watching her by the glow of the dying fire. He'd longed so badly to gently unknot the blindfold and let it slip away, aching to truly _see_ her, to watch the dark smudge of her eyelashes fan against her cheek as she slept, to see the true shape of her without the black slash that concealed so much of her beautiful face. Most of all, he wished for such a thing to be _allowed_. He wanted to be welcome there - _Cullen_ , not the man she wants her mystery lover to be but _himself_ , as he is; he wanted to pull the blindfold away, and not fear the possibility that her lakewater eyes might flutter open in the near-dark and meet his own with horror.

Maybe that is why he feels such guilt for the night they shared, this conflicted sense of wrongness for _wanting_ \- and failing miserably at trying not to _want_ \- to claim her. He aches to kiss her savagely until her lips are swollen and bruised, to unmake her with his hands and mouth until she is a whimpering, writhing mess of molten need, to rock her into the mattress in a tangle of sweat-spotted limbs until there can be no doubt that she is _his_. And that is the problem ... she isn't, _can't be_ , his. She will never want _him_ , flawed and broken as he is; she wants her fantasy man, her Dragonslayer.

She _deserves_ her Dragonslayer.

He scoffs at himself ruefully, startling a bleary-eyed guard to attention on the stairs as he passes. He thought he was distracting her from his true identity when he gave such an absurd answer to her question, for Cullen himself is anything but a hero; perhaps he hadn't quite realized that his response was as much wish-fulfillment as misdirection, because as much as he knows he's not the hero she deserves, he _wants_ to be.

_Maker,_ how he wishes he were worthy of her.

But does it truly matter? He might not be the lover she'd choose for herself, if given the choice; yet she clearly needs ... if not him, then ... _someone_. Varric's words come back to him: _there's power in fantasy, in escape._ Isn't the _illusion_ of a Dragonslayer better than no Dragonslayer at all?

For him to wish for anything more, to hold back crumbs of some future hope for himself when she herself is starving, is beneath him. This isn't, _can't be_ , about what _he_ wants; it's about what _she_ needs - even if what she needs is for him to sacrifice all hope of his own.

His stomach twists with grief as he remembers the decision he'd made the night before, the painful but necessary choice to encourage her to think badly of him so she wouldn't guess at his true identity. Even though he knows she would never think highly of him regardless - _Maker_ , he hasn't even begun to examine the regret he feels at learning how she truly sees him - there is a bittersweet rightness to the idea of quietly stepping aside so she can be happy with her fantasy man.

Yet it occurs to him now that he couldn't have chosen a better disguise for himself when he inadvertently assumed the guise of Dragonslayer. He can wear this mantle by night, and work at making her think more highly of her midnight lover, while deliberately pushing her opinion of his true self lower, moving those two identities apart like beads on an abacus sliding in opposite directions on their beam while he, Cullen, remains unnoticed in the middle, safely hidden in his own mediocrity.

He lifts a hand to shield his eyes as a beam of light shoulders its way past a crenellation on the eastern wall and flares like a sun in miniature. Funny, but he used to love sunrise, the peace and promise of it; yet now his heart stirs for the cool calm and firelit solitude of midnight. Already he aches to hear his lady gasp and sigh once more, to breathe the air from her lungs and kiss the sweat from her brow, to hold her trembling against him and feel her shudder and gasp into the crook of his neck as she peaks in his arms. For all his inner conflict this morning, for all that his actions of the night before feel wrong ... nothing in his life has ever felt as _right_ as seeking her core with his fingers and watching her unravel in his arms, watching her tension slip from her shoulders like a too-heavy cloak whose knotted ties have been slowly teased apart until they finally slide free.

He remembers how deliciously sated she'd seemed as she lay adrift in his arms after, how beautifully content, how peaceful and ... soft. It is not a word he would use to describe her by day, stressed and harried as she rushes from one crisis to the next, her edges sharpened to hardness by the necessities of her office. She _needs_ this, needs to lie like a child in the cradle of his arms, to be vulnerable by night where by day she is strong, to take by night where by day she is endlessly called upon to give.

He will not deny her that; he will give he whatever she asks for, _everything_ she asks for. But he will take no more for himself; she needs this, and he will not lessen it by letting his own selfish desires get in the way. He carefully pushes his own fantasies of consuming her, of kissing her insensate and claiming her body with his own, away. Just to be near her, to feel the weight of her against his body, to taste the salt of her skin and feel her sigh in bliss against his neck, is more than he ever thought to ask for, even in his wildest dreams; to bring her pleasure is pleasure enough.

Cullen rolls his shoulders and sighs as he looks out over the wall, stretching away the tension born of too much doubt and too little sleep. The morning light is beginning to pour from the rim of the valley, spilling across the encampment below; the ice-covered slopes glitter, effervescing like the bubbles that dance in the curves of a champagne coupe. The ghost of a smile tugs at the scar on his lip, and he realizes that he feels strangely at peace, content for now with this newly found purpose.

He will drink in his lady's pleasure like a man dying of thirst tilting his face to a storm-torn sky, trying to memorize the taste of rain. It won't be enough to save him, not _nearly_ enough, but sweet fucking _Maker_ , what a glorious way to go.

 

* * *

 

 

Evelyn pauses at the door to the main hall and presses her cheek to the wood, feeling a cool draft whisper against her pink-flushed skin. She focuses, for a moment, on simply breathing, on the rise and fall of her shoulders, on the way the carved-bone stays of her tunic pull taut each time her lungs expand with air.

Emotion knots in her belly like a tangled skein of yarn, and every time she tries to grasp a strand and tease it free it only ravels tighter. She awoke this morning to a bed that still held the shape of _him_ , his weight imprinted in the down mattress and etched into the rumpled bedding, and as she pulled the blindfold from her eyes she ran her fingers over the tousled sheets, feeling a profound and inexplicable sense of loss when she found them already cold.

She misses him. She doesn't even know his name, yet she misses him.

Which is, if she's honest with herself, absolutely absurd. She truly knows nothing about him; despite the deep intimacy of their two nights together, her mystery man remains just that, a mystery. Is he really as he seems? Is _anyone_ really as he seems? She has grown accustomed to impossible things, has seen wonders beyond imagining in her time with the Inquisition, yet she still can't quite bring herself to believe that such a man can possibly exist.

Now that she stands in the light of day, doubt starts to creep in, uncertainty unfurling in her veins like the lazy trails of incense that drift above a Chantry altar. Is her midnight caller truly the gentleman that he pretends to be? Or is he bragging to his buddies this morning, laughing about how easily he's tricked her into spreading her legs for him? She feels a flush of humiliation rise in her gut as she remembers how reckless she'd been the night before, how eager. Oh _Maker_. She presses trembling fingers to her mouth as she wonders if the Inquisition's tremendous rumor mill is already at work, the news of her midnight indiscretions scattering across Skyhold as swiftly as snow on a winter's gale.

But ... _no_. She can't quite believe that; her mystery man could have taken _anything_ he wanted, _everything_ he wanted, yet he'd forgone his own pleasure for the sake of hers. His deeds prove him a gentleman, generous and kind; she may know little else about him, but she knows what matters.

She steadies herself against the door, leaning back and raising her face to watch a thick veil of dust dance in the rafters above, each mote polished to diamond brilliance by a beam of morning light. Breathing slowly, she gently pokes at the snarl of shame that pains her, as a village healer would probe a sore limb to find the cause of the hurt.

Perhaps, beneath it all, it's not that she fears her midnight lover is unworthy; it's that she fears _she_ is. The memory of lying in her lover's arms while he lavishes such tender affections upon her, such unhurried care, makes her feel as if, for once, _she_ is the villager with some oddly immaterial personal request, and _he_ the hero willing to journey to the far corners of the map merely to gain her regard. She's not used to such luxury; she has been giving to the Inquisition for so long that she's forgotten how to take, or even how to want. She owns little that she truly considers her own, and whatever prizes she wins on the battlefield that aren't handed out to strengthen her inner circle go straight into the Inquisition's coffers; she feels as if, for once, she's slipped a shiny trinket into her pocket, secreting something of value away for her own selfish enjoyment. Her belly goes hot with guilt at the thought of it, of asking for something all her own.

Still, it is somehow far easier to believe in a man who would bed her for the bragging rights than to believe that she is worthy of a man who would pleasure her so tenderly with no apparent hope for gain; she's unable to bring herself to meet anyone's eyes as she slips from her door at last and makes her way to the officer's canteen, for fear that they _know_. She accepts breakfast from the chow line without paying attention to what the serving girl spoons into her bowl, and approaches her table, finally looking up just in time to avoid ending up in the lap of the woman who sits in her usual chair.

She swears softly; her table is full. She blames Varric - the crowd at their table has grown by the day as eager _Midnight at Starkeep_ fans gravitate to the author, hoping that he'll let something, _anything_ , about his work slip. The dwarf holds court over his impromptu book club with a detached bemusement, skillfully suggesting _just enough_ to keep his fans coming back morning after morning without ever quite revealing anything at all.

Cassandra slides over to open up space on her bench, inching with studied deliberateness nearer to Varric; the dwarf carefully avoids looking at her as their shoulders press together, suddenly acutely interested in his bacon. Evelyn gratefully squeezes in between Cassandra and a uniformed youth she vaguely recognizes as one of Josephine's message-runners. A lively discussion is in progress, as butter tubs and theories, salt shakers and headcanons are all busily exchanged across the table.

Nobody pays her any undue attention, though, and a sigh of relief slips softly from her chest. She sits merely breathing for a long moment, simply trying to gain her balance and center herself in the _now_ ; she finds it difficult work, when her mind keeps wanting to drift back to the silent shores of midnight like a boat awash on a tide.

She's startled from her reverie by a flying crust of toast, flung from across the table; it bounces off the young man beside her and hits her in the shoulder before landing in her bowl. Somehow she's able to guess at who's thrown it even before she looks up. "The _duke?_ That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Sera complains loudly.

"Oh? And why _couldn't_ it be the duke?" the errand-boy argues back.

"Nobody that rich or powerful _ever_ does anything nice unless they expect to get something out of it," Sera declares. "If it was some royal arsebiscuit he'd _want_ her to know who he was, yeah?"

The argument hits a little too closely to home; Evelyn stares uncomfortably at her breakfast, trying to fish Sera's toast out with her spoon. She _still_ doesn't know what the serving girl added to her bowl - whatever it is, it's mushy and gray; she spoons half the sugar bowl over it to be sure, and samples a bite cautiously.

"Now wait just a minute there, Buttercup," Varric interrupts, his voice rich with amusement. "I thought you were only reading my book _ironically_?"

Sera freezes and clamps her mouth shut, looking like a deer caught in the path of a hunter's arrow for a fraction of a second before she scoffs and dismisses the accusation with an exaggerated wave of her toast. "'Course I am. Don't mean he's any less stupid, does it?"

"If you say so." Varric folds his arms and sits back with a self-indulgent smile.

Evelyn feels the young man beside her bristle with outrage, and worries for a moment that he's about to rise from the bench to bodily defend his favored character's honor; sadly, it wouldn't be the first time their breakfast book club has come to blows. "So you think the duke is _using_ her?" he says hotly, shifting restlessly but still seated.

"Noooo," Sera says, rolling her eyes as she stuffs a toast point, crustless, into her mouth. "I think he's _not the duke_ , dummy." They go on arguing, and Evelyn tunes it out and adds a glob of butter to her bowl, and a drizzle of cream, not because she thinks they'll help the taste but because she needs an excuse to go on staring at her breakfast as she stirs.

Cassandra is unusually silent beside her, for once not rushing in to defend Varric's work, and for a long while Evelyn is content to simply sit next to her friend and eat quietly. Her perceptions of the night before still overwhelm her, like a drowsy haze she can't quite wake from - the taste of his mouth as he unmakes her with slow kisses, the scent of his skin as she presses her face to the pulsing hollow of his throat, the warmth of his hands drifting over her body as if he sought to commit each trembling curve to memory; and wherever the blindfold leaves a gap in her senses, emotion rushes in to fill the void, like sunlight through the cracks in an old stone wall, flooding her with an aching warmth. _Maker_ , it's unlike anything she's ever known, or even dreamed possible, and damn it, but for all that she worries that her mystery man might be bragging about his conquest this morning, she can't help but want to _tell someone_ , herself.

She leans into Cassandra, resting her cheek on the Seeker's shoulder. "Do you remember the scene with the griffon feather?" she asks as she digs her elbow into her side, a sly smile ghosting across her lips.

There's no chance of them being overheard, with three or four simultaneous discussions happening around them in addition to Sera's impassioned argument, but Cassandra looks around guiltily to make sure nobody's listening all the same. She casts her a sharp look sidelong, a single eyebrow arched. "Why ... why do you ask?" she says, fidgeting in her seat.

Evelyn coughs delicately and stirs her breakfast, poking at an unmelted lump of butter. "No reason," she says, feeling her cheeks go pink.

"Ah." Cassandra is quiet, toying nervously with her fork as she bumps against Evelyn's hip. "Do you ... do you remember the scene with the silk scarves?" she asks at last, a flush of embarrassment rising on her cheekbones.

Evelyn nearly chokes on a mouthful of gruel, and forces it down before responding. "The one where he ties her to the - " She swallows, hard. "Why do _you_ ask?" she says.

Cassandra is silent a long moment, and when Evelyn finally dares to sneak a peek at her, she's busy cutting her ham into meticulous pieces, staring fixedly into her plate as the barest hint of a smile softens her face. "No reason," she echoes.

Evelyn feels an answering smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, threatening to give her away, and she forces herself to stare at her own bowl until the feeling passes. Oh _Maker,_ if only her friend knew it wasn't merely the _book_ she's remembering....

Another piece of toasted crust bounces off her arm, and into Cassandra's coffee. "The archer?" the messenger exclaims incredulously at her other elbow. "What, the Crow? But she's a woman! How would _that_ work?"

Sera begins to explain exactly _how_ , in full detail; Evelyn is not alone in quickly excusing herself from the table as Sera starts to carve a crude diagram of some sort of strappy Orlesian contraption into the surface of the butter tub.

She still has time before she's expected in the war room, though, as Leliana and Josephine have only now wandered in together for breakfast; so she steps outside and quietly strolls the grounds. She feels as if she's been slowly dragged back from the silent depths of midnight by the energy of Varric's book club, and she's finally surfaced, perhaps still a bit adrift but with her head, finally, above water.

She nods idly to a few patrolling soldiers as she crosses the bailey, and greets Commander Cullen with a crisp hello as they pass on the stairs. She climbs to her favorite vantage point on the ramparts and looks out across the valley. She's missed the sunrise; the mountains lay striped, golden sunlight against deep bands of shadowed blue, like the brightly woven shawls the elves used to sell in the Ostwick alienage.

He's out there somewhere, her mystery man. Among the troops that drift into formation below, preparing for an early run to warm up for their training. Wandering the corridors of Skyhold delivering messages for Josephine or gathering intel for Leliana. Huddled with the guards that are gathered nearby, clustered for warmth over a steam grate. Across from her at the breakfast table, bickering over the inconsequential details of Varric's book.

The thought of it, of _him_ , sharing in her daylit reality and walking the same halls, makes her belly effervesce with nervous heat. Whoever he is - Dragonslayer, scoundrel or something inbetween, whether he's the warm safety she longs to lean into or the danger she fears he may be, she cannot bring herself to turn him away.

This could make her, or it could destroy her; and for the moment, as memories of last night carry her back through the main hall and to the long day of work that awaits her, haunting her like a phantom tune barely heard on a breeze, she can't quite seem to care which.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, please accept my sincerest apologies for being absent so long only to deliver such an unnecessary chapter upon my return. This was supposed to be the lead-in to a longer chapter but the word count got away from me and this seemed the best place to cut it, even if nothing really happens. ~~More coming (relatively) soon!~~
> 
> Also, I headcanon Sera as having appalling table manners. That part I'm not sorry for. ❤
> 
> * * *
> 
> Update 1/18/16: So, I lied with that whole 'soon' thing, obviously. It has been a rough couple of months but I'm finally getting back to normal life and making time to write again. I have no ETA on Chapter 9 yet but it *will* be up eventually; I have absolutely no intention of abandoning this fic. Thank you so much for sticking with me; I love you all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely [cute-ellyna](http://cute-ellyna.tumblr.com) created [this absolutely beautiful art tribute](http://cute-ellyna.tumblr.com/post/138432252735/my-lady-tribute-art-for-the-most-sensual) for Midnight at Skyhold. Please go drool over her gorgeous art and be sure to tell her how wonderful she is while you're there.

When Cullen was a boy he'd kept a box of treasures, small trinkets culled from his adventures - a river stone, marbled with lilac veins of crystal, its surface worn perfectly smooth.   A chess pawn, quietly pocketed out of spite when a neighbor's daughter gloated in victory across her ivory-carved set. A small hunk of driftwood, gathered from a trip to the shore. He hasn't thought of this box in years - he'd left it behind when he'd gone to the Templars, taking only Branson's coin as reminder of that boyhood lost, and he has no idea what happened to it after; but once it had held the sum of everything that was important in his world.

In many ways he feels like that same small boy now, navigating a world that feels new and alive with possibility, collecting baubles to tuck away; only now the treasures he gathers are memories. His first glimpse of his lady on that very first night, burnished to a soft radiance by the pale glow of the fireplace, the dark ties of the blindfold trailing against the slender curve of her neck as she turns to meet the sound of his foot on the stair. The sight of her freckled back bared to him, a blush blooming across her pale-soft skin as he reaches out and strokes it with trembling fingertips. The feel of her warm lips sighing against his own, the tip of his nose brushing against hers as he savors that first berry-sweet kiss. He takes these small, still moments and cups them in his hands like the wonders that they are, nestling them gently into a new collection of treasures as if they are delicate shells gathered, rosy and glowing, from a dawn-lit beach.

The next time he finds himself in the after-midnight stillness of Evelyn's quarters, he gathers a vision of long, elegant legs and tucks it safely away in his treasure trove of memories. He's certain he'll never forget this moment as long as he lives; no matter how old, or how lyrium-addled his brain, nothing could ever erase from memory the sight of her slender legs laid bare before him, of thirsty skin gleaming golden as it drinks in the fire's glow.

She reclines against the bolstered arm of her loveseat, her legs slung casually across his lap as they chat idly about their day, and he's awed by how easy it feels to simply _be_ with her in such a shockingly informal way, how familiar and natural the weight of her feels against his body. She wears a nightgown that looks as if it's made of spun moonlight, the fabric shimmery and silvery-pale; its hemline is meant to fall to a modest length somewhere near her knee but has rucked higher as she wriggles comfortably against him, exposing her to mid-thigh.

Cullen swallows thickly, unable to tear his eyes away from the place where the cling of the fabric yields, the fluted hem revealing exquisite curves formed of dewy skin and supple flesh. He's never had occasion to see her bared above the ankle, and he feels his breath catch in his throat each time she shifts her legs, captivated by the graceful interplay of long, lean muscle straining beneath bare skin - always that curious contradiction with her, soft yet strong, her body a machine wrought impossibly from satin and steel.

He's never quite thought about the elegance of a body's parts, of bone and skin and sinew, beyond their function; yet he finds himself enthralled by the form of her, by the bones in her foot that take shape as she flexes her toes in response to the lazy fingers he trails down her shin, by the tendons that stretch taut at her heel. He grazes his gloved knuckles over the ball of her ankle and slowly trails them up the sleek curve of her calf, watching the amber firelight flow liquid down her skin the way a captured orb of molten light will slide down the blade of a burnished sword.

"Maker's breath, you're beautiful," he murmurs, scarcely caring that he's repeating himself, having uttered those same words a half dozen times or more in the hour he's spent in her presence tonight.

She lets out a breathy, shuddering giggle and shifts nearer; her hemline slips even higher, revealing yet another quarter inch of pale skin, and Cullen sucks in a jagged breath as her bottom presses against his thigh. "I can hardly take credit," she says, a faint blush tinting her cheeks.

He brushes his fingertips along the soft skin that hollows at the back of her knee, and when she gasps and mewls in ticklish protest, he makes a point of pausing there, stroking her skin in small teasing circles just to feel her squirm against him. "Your legs --" he tries again, for in this moment nothing he has ever done has seemed so crucial as making her understand how makerfucking _beautiful_ she is, fire-bronzed and radiant as she rests against him, a goddess in repose.

"Are entirely my mother's fault." Evelyn idly lifts her foot and points her toes; Cullen watches in rapt fascination as the muscles along the back of her leg tighten and mold into alluring new shapes beneath his fingers in response. "This is the result of _years_ of expensive dance lessons."

"Oh?" The admission surprises, and rather delights, him; he never would have guessed, yet it explains the eloquence with which she carries herself, the grace with which she moves. He shifts his touch upward, exploring the exposed skin above her knee with excruciatingly slow strokes of his knuckles. "Tell me more, my lady," he murmurs throatily, leaning closer.

She lets out a tense chuckle, her fingers twisting together in her lap, and for a moment Cullen fears he's pressed her in a direction she doesn't want to go. "There's not much to tell," she says. "It's just ... well, my mother is from Orlais."

When she pauses he leans nearer. "Don't worry," he rumbles dryly against her neck, "I won't hold it against you."

This wins him a small and startled laugh, and he's able to slide an arm around her and coax her forward. She nestles against him, resting her head comfortably against his shoulder. "She hated Ostwick," she explains, and Cullen feels his heart speed with the personal detail that she's let slip to him; he knows where she comes from, of course, but _she_ doesn't know that, and even that small bit of information - and the trust it implies - feels like a victory, and a gift.

"She was miserable there. Not enough --" she waves her hands around in a vague gesture, as if she doesn't quite understand the concept -- " _culture_. She had a small concert hall built in town when I was a child, and became a great patron of the arts. She was always bringing in orchestras and ballets to perform. I guess since she couldn't go home, she was trying to carry a piece of it with her."

She swallows thickly, but Cullen honestly can't decide whether it is due to some buried emotion of the past, or the fact that his fingers have slid to her inner thigh, slowly tracing the line between her knee and the hem of her nightgown and back again. "She was determined to see me grow up to become a star _danseur_ ," she says. "It was her dream to see me perform on stage of the _Théâtre Impérial_ in Val Royeaux."

The words are laced with just a hint of old pain. He lifts his fingers to her face, tenderly tracing wayward strands of hair and smoothing them away from her cheek; the solid warmth of her pressed against his side is deliciously distracting. "Her dream?" he says gently. "Not yours?"

She shrugs, a small movement of her shoulder against his, and he can suddenly see her as a restless child, stuck indoors with pretentious and demanding tutors and longing for ... for what? He feels a stirring of an emotion he can't quite give name to, not quite jealousy or sadness or longing but not quite _not_ those things, either, at the idea that there are so many years of her life that are unknown to him. So many lives she may have lived, or dreams she may have dreamed; so many layers of her yet to be discovered.

He knows the Inquisitor as well as anyone can, after all the time they've spent together in the war room; he knows how she thinks, what she fears and what she values. Yet the Inquisitor is new, a person born of trial and fire less than a year before, a tiny sliver of the whole that is _her_. What she's given him a glimpse of, unexpectedly, is someone he has never seen, a life he does not know. And it pains him to know with a certainty that he cannot truly be the one to unravel all those layers and genuinely _know_ her, all of her, as long as the blindfold stands in the way. For all that there is a sense of gain in these little glimpses of her, there too is an aching sense of loss, for all that he will never have.

But he's selfish and he's greedy, and he takes what he can, grasping the edge of the raw layer that's been exposed and trying to tease it free. "What was your dream?" he asks, his thumb stroking in lazy circles along her inner thigh, against the last of the pale skin before her leg is lost to shadow beneath the hem of her skirt.

She chuckles softly, the sound muffled against the collar of his shirt. "I wanted to hit stupid people with my bow," she says. "I got my dream, in the end."

He runs his free hand through her hair, feeling thick locks of it slip through his gloved fingers. "You knew you wanted to be an archer even then?" he asks. He knows that archery, in the Free Marches, is considered a proper way for the ladies of the nobility to take their exercise, though it consists mainly of strolling idly across back lawns in full skirts absorbed in gossip, with servants at hand to place targets and retrieve stray arrows; it's not so surprising that she would have been exposed to it at an early age. And what he wants to say - but can't, for fear that she will question how he _knows_ \- is that the years of dance have ended up serving her well, for he can see the grace and skill in the way she moves on the battlefield, in the way she easily weaves in and out of range of a target, in the way she nimbly lunges in to finish an enemy off with her knives. He wonders if it would horrify her proper, genteel mother to know that her daughter ended up putting her expensive lessons to work in the theater of war, instead of the auditoriums of the Empire.

"No," she says, beginning to giggle against the hollow of his throat. "I just really wanted to hit stupid people."

He feels an answering laughter rumble up in his chest, and for a moment they simply cling together, laughing softly against each other's necks, and enjoy a moment of unlikely connection, of quiet and improbable joy.   He knows that this, exposing her past, her _self_ , is somehow even more intimate and more terrifying than baring her body, and he's overcome with such a surge of warmth and gratitude toward her, for making this so _easy_ , for giving him so much. He gently draws her head from his shoulder, pushes her hair back from her face and tucks it behind her ear, then strokes her cheek with his thumb as he tilts her face just so, the laughter dying in his throat just as she stills and goes quiet.

He's never understood the idea he's come across in novels, that absurd notion of being so overcome with love for someone that you have to kiss them _right fucking now_ ; but suddenly, he understands.

When she leans nearer he loses his breath, as if she were a fire that has consumed all the air in the room; she certainly burns as bright. She's radiant, lips parted around quickened breaths, twin blossoms of flush rising on her pale cheeks beneath the dark slash of the blindfold. His hand trembles against her jaw; even though he knows now that she will welcome his kiss, he's still terrified as he tenderly brushes his mouth against hers.

This second time kissing her, he finds, holds no less awe and wonder than the first; he suspects he'll feel the same a hundred, a thousand, kisses from now, starstruck and trembling and raw with emotion as his lips test hers gently and find them pliant and warm. She's beautifully responsive, arching into the press of his lips and meeting it with a trembling, longing kiss of her own. She tastes of sugar and vanilla, from the cookies he'd swiped from the kitchens to share with her earlier; it takes very little coaxing to tease her lips apart so he can chase the flavor, stroking his tongue into the warmth of her mouth.

His hand slides up and down the elegant column of her neck, gently correcting the angle of her head in order to deepen the kiss, and his efforts are rewarded with a soft, keening whimper against his lips. There is something familiar, something almost _military_ , about lovemaking, he realizes; it's a revelation to discover that that he can make the experience better for her through simple adjustments, the way a siege master will calibrate a trebuchet.

His other hand has never left her thigh, fingertips still tracing small circles on creamy skin, and he tentatively presses them higher, letting them slip beneath the hem of her nightgown. She writhes against him as his thumb sweeps up her inner thigh, her hands fisting in the front of his shirt; her body is alluringly different here, he finds - softer, less muscle and more plump flesh. A thrill of want shudders through him; he aches to carry her to her bed and lose himself completely among those thighs, to worship at the altar between them.

He takes her mouth with exquisite slowness, beguiled by the soft rhythm of grazing lips, the seeking press of his tongue against hers, until he is faint with breathlessness, and the temptation to pull her into his lap and buck his hips against the cradle of her thighs is nearly too much to bear. He groans and forces himself to break off the kiss abruptly. He cannot - _will not_ \- allow himself to lose control around her ever again; he will take nothing from her tonight but memories.

But she mewls in complaint at the withdrawal of his lips, and tries to follow; his fingers slip higher up her thigh as she presses closer, until they brush against the searing heat at the core of her, through her damp smallclothes. He watches her, rapt with fascination at the reedy whimper of need his touch has coaxed from her throat, at the rise and fall of her gasping breast against the neckline of her gown.

Maker, this woman ... as impossible as it seems, she feels like home. Not her quarters - although those are beginning to feel comfortable to him too, all amber-lit warmth and soft surfaces to sink into when his knees invariably go weak - but _her_. It's her; it's all her. She makes him feel alive and new again, makes small moments feel momentous, makes inconsequential ones feel profound. Every moment spent with her feels like it's infused with wonder; he knows she has no magic, yet she holds him spellbound all the same.

So when she inevitably rises and tugs on his hand, trying to lead him to the bed, he doesn't attempt to fight it, doesn't try to talk himself out of it or brand it a bad idea in his head; he simply stands, and follows.

He makes sure she's settled comfortably on her back before reclining on the bed beside her, determined to be no less attentive than he was the visit before. He takes his time, drugging her with languid kisses while his hands wander her body, caressing her in broad, warm strokes and pausing to mold his palms to the swells of her curves. He laves breath-warmed kisses down the elegant slope of her throat, before mouthing her breasts through the whisper-thin cling of her nightgown. He lavishes her with love in every way that he knows how, until she's writhing, gasping and incoherent, against her pillow.

He eases himself lower on the mattress, then, and starts with one bare ankle, kissing its rounded bone, then switching to her other leg and mirroring that hot press of lips against the pale skin there. With meticulous slowness he slowly grazes his lips along the same rambling path his fingers had pioneered before them, exploring and tasting the fire-limned lines of her calves, the shadowed hollows of her knees, pausing now and then to savor the small noises she makes in response, bewitched by each murmur of pleasure, every gasp of need. He warms her skin with massaging presses of his hands as he goes, cupping and gently squeezing as he maps the sleek curves of her legs, eager to memorize every last lovely inch of her.

It does not escape him, as he tentatively slides a glove beneath her skirt so he can fill his palm with the plush flesh of her inner thigh, that she is growing bolder in her wardrobe choices, her nightclothes becoming more daring by the night. The fact that there is nothing to keep him from the spot that had yielded to such fascination last time makes him wonder if it were a deliberate choice on her part, to leave herself so exposed; perhaps even an invitation? He tests the theory with a soft brush of his knuckles against her smalls, and is rewarded by the draw of a shuddering breath, a strangled and barely recognizable _yes_ escaping her lungs as her hands fist in the sheets beside her.

Cullen swallows nervously as he shifts his body higher, his shoulders easing her knees apart, and presses a searing kiss to her inner thigh. His hands inch her nightgown higher up her legs, and he wonders whether she can feel his fingers tremble against her skin, whether the faint terror that underscores his movements is apparent to her as he turns his cheek and lets it rest a moment on her thigh, pooling his breath against her skin.

He knows the basic geography of a woman's body, at least in theory; it is, oddly enough, a basic byproduct of years of living in close quarters with men. Vulgar talk had been inescapable in the Templar dormitories, men bragging about their exploits or offering questionable advice to the greener recruits; and it was hard to find a footlocker in the barracks that didn't have a pin-up poster or tattered circular concealed beneath its lid, contraband that was traded and discussed in uncomfortable detail throughout the ranks. Even now, he would occasionally confiscate a bawdy postcard from one of his troops and secret it away in his desk drawer, only to pull it out in private moments to blush in his study of the woodcut image. And, Maker help him, he's thankful to Varric for being so unabashedly explicit in his writing. This combined knowledge had been enough for him to get through his first fumbling encounter in his lady's bed, even if there had been more guesswork and luck involved than actual skill; and it had not hurt that she'd been keyed so tightly, dry tinder waiting for only the smallest of sparks to set it ablaze.

He is determined to acquit himself well tonight; but Maker, he can't seem to stop the tremor in his fingertips as he strokes the edge of her nightgown ever higher against the tender skin of her thigh, can't help the way his breath stutters in his lungs as he chases her hemline with his mouth, warming each inch of newly revealed skin with lingering presses of his lips. There's a fatal flaw in his decision to give to her without taking, he realizes; it depends entirely on him having something worth giving in the first place. He's so afraid that he'll let her down, that he'll slink from her room in the pale hours near dawn with her yet unsatisfied, and the thought of it makes his heart clench in his chest as he slides his hands up under her gown, letting them mold to the rounded swells of her hips.

He runs his thumbs along the band of her smallclothes, tracing the lacy edges through his gloves. "My lady," he murmurs unsteadily, and waits for her quavering words of consent before hooking his thumbs in the cloth and sliding her smalls down her legs with meticulous slowness. He lets his fingertips trail against her skin as he drags the wisp of silvery fabric down her thighs, over her knees and along her calves, finally freeing it from her feet and letting it drop to the floor.

He draws back, then, massaging her calves as he takes a long moment to simply _look_ at her. Reclining on the bed bathed in firelight, it would be easy to mistake her for the work of a master sculptor, a masterpiece carved from golden marble. His eyes trace the light-tipped lines of her legs, their long, shapely curves aglow, then slip to the cling of her nightgown, shimmery folds rucked high against her hips. His gaze rounds the swell of her breast, the pale flesh that heaves above the neckline of her gown as her back arches off the bed; he chases the ties of her blindfold as they spoon against the slender curve of her shoulder. He studies, at last, the lovely profile of her face as she presses a cheek to her pillow, her hair a dark fan around her, her sweet lips parted and gasping in soft, panting moans of need. _Maker_ , she's stunning. He feels his heart clench again, but this time his fear is tempered with resolve, by a fierce desire to give her his best. She deserves no less than that.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, he eases her legs over his shoulders and slides forward to press a trembling kiss to the damp curls between them.

In the still, rapt moments that follow, his nervousness is forgotten, yielding to a fascination that leaves no room for fear. Enthralled, he slowly maps the intricacies of her body, exploring her with mouth and tongue until her gasped reactions erase the very last traces of worry and doubt. However little skill he may have, she seems to be as spellbound in this moment as he is, and that gives him the confidence to press forward and test her in earnest.

There is something strangely familiar about pleasuring a woman, he realizes, something almost military; something in the natural meter his mouth wants to take, the instinctual rhythm of push and pull, reminds him of sparring with a partner on the training field. For all his inexperience, he finds that his warrior's instincts serve him well; after all, success in battle requires an acute focus, a keen attention paid to another's physical cues.   He's learned, in training, to attune himself to even the subtlest changes in his partner's breathing, to read even the slightest tell-tale shifts in the way their muscles flex, the way they position their body, to anticipate their moves and be ready to meet them.

He practices that same mindfulness now, closely watching his lady's reactions and learning exactly which spots bring her pleasure when he touches them, and measuring how that pleasure shifts and changes completely as he alters the shape, the speed, the pressure of his tongue and lips against her. He carefully catalogues what makes her pant and gasp and what makes her breathe slowly and sigh softly, what makes her arch her hips and clutch the sheets in her fists and what makes her melt and relax into the mattress. He notes each mewling sound that escapes her throat with rapt fascination, each press of her curling toes against his shoulder blades, and memorizes the actions that caused them.

He learns quickly how to choreograph these moves together, easing her with languid strokes until she's limp and sighing against her pillow, then sucking hard until she's frantic and bucking against him. As any good soldier knows, a training match isn't about forcing a partner to surrender as quickly as possible; it's a matter of endurance, pushing forth then falling back, challenging then yielding. He employs the same strategy here, that same give and take, pressing her until she wails, then drawing away to nuzzle her inner thigh and tease the soft skin there with his stubble until she - and he - can breathe again.

She reaches for his hair, seeking to mindlessly bury her fingers there, and he only just manages to catch her in time and gently pushes her hands away. When she does it again, he captures her hands in his and keeps them, threading his fingers through hers; she clings to him, and that point of contact feels somehow far more intimate than anything else he's touched so far, keeping them both anchored as he continues his slow conquest between her thighs.

At last he pushes her too close to the edge to be coaxed back again, so he presses her with his mouth and helps her over into the abyss below. He watches, intoxicated, as she falls, her face tipped back against the pillow, pink and dewed with sweat beneath the dark wound of the blindfold; listens, a sharp gasp of breath, followed by the softest, sweetest of cries through parted lips; feels, hands squeezing his almost to the point of pain, heels digging into the blades of his upper back as she surrenders to him completely.

In the breathless silence of the aftermath, he presses his face to her thigh, memorizing the feel of her, her scent, the warmth of her skin against his cheek; and some small part of him is convinced, beyond all logic and against everything the Chantry has ever taught him, that he has just borne witness to some quiet, profound miracle.

He slowly disentangles their bodies, unweaving their fingers and easing her legs aside, and gently smooths her skirt out so it properly covers her legs again. He crawls back up beside her and joins her at her pillow, wrapping his arms around her as she turns into the warm shelter of his body. He holds her, kissing her sweetly and trailing his fingers through her hair, trying to soften the shudders that wrack her lungs. He can't keep himself from husking soft, barely intelligible words of praise against her ear, telling her how wonderful she is, how radiant, how sublime; and while he can't be sure she even hears the words, beyond the low cadence of his voice rumbling against her as he mouths her neck, he can't help but babble them all the same. He feels nearly as wracked by her climax as she seems, breathless and trembling and somehow, beneath the carefully distanced roar of his own arousal, strangely sated in a way that has nothing to do with physical desire.

When he feels her fingers creep slowly to his waist, tugging lightly on the laces of his pants as if she means to offer an act of reciprocation, he catches her hand and gently yet firmly pushes it aside, shushing her softly when she murmurs a complaint against his neck.

Instead he eases her onto her stomach, rubbing and kneading whatever remains of the day's tension from her back with one gloved hand. She nestles close to his side, her face turned against his shoulder, and sighs softly in contentment. As silence spools comfortably between them, he sifts through an overwhelming wealth of new memories and gathers the ones that shine the brightest - plush, pale thighs parting for him; her fingers laced with his, knuckles white against the dark of his gloves; her face, haloed by the dark wreath of her hair against her pillow, lips parted in a perfect _O_ as her body yields beneath his mouth - and nestles them carefully beside all the others he's collected, lovingly tucking them away to keep them safe.

So when she stirs drowsily against him, and whispers, "Who are you?" against the collar of his shirt, he doesn't have to think twice about his response.

He gently tips his lady's face to his for another kiss, feeling the memories he's created shine in his mind like marbles in a jam jar on a summer windowsill, and murmurs his answer softly against the bow of her lip.

"I am a man who treasures you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long absence, another chapter that goes nowhere; I'm so sorry. This was not quite the chapter I intended it to be, but this new development in their physical relationship refused to be glossed over.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I am somehow the luckiest _ever_ , I have two new pieces of [artwork](http://ladydanya.tumblr.com/tagged/fan-art) to share this time around! (Seriously, how does this keep happening? Thank you!!) Please go check these lovelies out:
> 
> [This sketch](http://lonyn.tumblr.com/post/140493140095/maker-youre-beautiful-some-more-sketchy) by actual cinnamon roll [Lonyn](http://lonyn.tumblr.com), and  
> [This artwork](http://ohhsweetmaker.tumblr.com/post/142429382558/i-commissioned-lissinator-to-make-some-art-for) by the amazing [Lissinator](http://lissinator.tumblr.com/) and commissioned by total sweetheart [ohhsweetmaker](http://ohhsweetmaker.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Again, thank you so much! ❤❤❤

In the days and weeks that follow, Evelyn wanders Skyhold like a woman possessed, echoes of midnight haunting her in everything she does.

For being so painfully absent for days at a time, her mystery man somehow manages to be _everywhere_. He slips into her war table meetings, plaguing her with memories of warm, seeking hands and soft pressing lips, her concentration unraveling until she snaps back to reality to find Leliana and Josephine staring at her in concern, the Commander scowling down at the table in obvious irritation at her unprofessionalism.

He distracts her during training. She tries so hard to keep her mind a blank while she practices her dagger skills with Cole, strangely terrified that the spirit might blurt out her secret and reveal her for the damned fool she is in front of all of Skyhold. But memories inevitably catch her unaware and softly pull her under, until she winds up in the dirt with a knife at her throat, desperately trying to banish thoughts of gloved hands and silken blindfolds before Cole thinks to question her aloud.

He makes it difficult to work, and impossible to read. Correspondence piles up on her desk while she stares unseeing out the window, reliving some moment of tender bliss. It grows harder still to tread against the tide of memories as she accumulates more, for her mystery man comes back again, and then again a few midnights later, leaving her to spend her days adrift on a sea of gentle fantasies, flashbacks of heated kisses on bare skin, a questing tongue searing hot on her body as he pleasures her senseless.

And while each rapt encounter, every bliss-filled moment he spends in her quarters has been a gift, it's an exquisite sort of torture to ache for him in the days that lie between, to know he is so near, somewhere, yet so frustratingly out of reach. She finds herself wondering what he's doing, as she goes about her days; where he is ... _who_ he is.

That question, if she's honest with herself, rapidly becomes a dangerous distraction, though she doesn't quite realize it for the obsession it is until the day she drifts off in the hallway outside the war council room and is startled back to reality by a timid voice asking, "Your Worship? Are you all right, serah?"

She flinches, her thoughts scattering like a flock of birds taking wing, and looks up to meet the eyes of a rather alarmed Marcher boy who wears the uniform of Josephine's runners. He wrings a crumpled scroll in his hands - the same missive he's been trying to catch her attention to deliver for an embarrassingly long span of moments, now. Her gaze flicks guiltily back to his pale gloves as she reaches for the report; she'd been staring at the boy's hands when her attention drifted. She swallows hard as she accepts the parchment, praying that he doesn't notice the color that rises to her cheeks as she snaps a curt dismissal and watches him flee.

Maker's breath, what is _wrong_ with her?

It's become a bad habit of hers, she realizes, in the weeks that have passed since her midnight lover made his first appearance in her quarters; she can't help but wonder over every last man she meets, knowing that any of the endless stream of men that rotate through Skyhold could be _him_. She obsesses over those few physical pieces of himself that her Dragonslayer has been willing to share with her; she finds herself endlessly fascinated by mouths, and voices, and of course by _hands_. And, in a subconscious attempt to find a place where memory and anatomy align, she finds herself studying the hands of every man she encounters, like a scholar poring over her books, as if she hopes to reveal her midnight lover's identity simply by discovering a pair of hands that matches the width and breadth of his. She constantly catches herself comparing the size of random men's hands to the relative areas of her body that _his_ hand has covered in a single squeezing press, performing complex feats of geometry in her head, wondering if those hands could span her ... _well_.

She flushes scarlet, remembering the night before, the feel of her mystery man's hands on her, of buttery leather gloves cupping her bare bottom beneath the hem of her robe as he lifts her to the edge of her desk and sinks to his knees before her ... oh, _Maker_. She twists the unread report in her hands so hard the paper splits, and watches as the message runner - whose hands are nowhere near that large - disappears around the corner, one more suspect mentally crossed off her list; hopefully she hasn't traumatized the boy too badly with her wandering attentions.

She half expects the parchment in her hands to be a summons to an intervention; she blushes anew at the thought of walking into the war room to find her advisors waiting to scold her for being too distracted of late to properly attend her duties. She feels shame burn taut and bright in the pit of her belly as she pictures herself stared down by a shrewd-eyed spymaster and a cold and disapproving Commander ... _Maker_ , what a nightmare. She _has_ to pull herself together.

But oh, Maker, she needs so badly to _know_. It's killing her to wonder; she longs so badly to see her lover, to _know_ him beyond the veil of the blindfold. He exists in her mind like a wisp in the Fade, a spirit of warmth and affection, but she would give anything to grant him form; she aches to be able to conjure a mental image of someone tangible and _real_ while she's lying on her bed gasping beneath his mouth, to be able to imagine the heat in his eyes, the crook of his smile as he pleasures her.

"What color are your eyes?" she'd blurted out one night without meaning to, as they sat side by side on her loveseat; he remained silent for so long that she began to fear he'd quietly slipped from the room, until a trembling glove lit gently on her knee and he awkwardly, determinedly changed the subject. She didn't press further, terrified that he truly _would_ leave if she did, if she insisted on taking more of himself than he was willing to give.

She's startled by the sound of her own bitter bark of laughter, echoing across the stillness of the deserted hallway. _How very typical_ , she thinks ruefully as she leans back against the broken stone wall, twisting the delivered scroll in her hands. She's been handed her wildest fantasies come to life on a silver platter, and _still_ , somehow, it isn't quite enough.

The parchment, once she gathers her wits enough to read it, is a request from Ser Morris to come review a stack of requisition orders, and she welcomes a distraction of a different sort. Yet she can't help blushing once again in his office when her eyes keep straying of their own accord to the table, where the quartermaster's hand toys with a quill; she swallows as she surreptitiously rests her own hand on the sheaf of reports that lies before her and tries to mentally measure the man's thick fingers against her own.

She marvels that she hasn't been committed to bed by her friends yet, for her endless state of pink-faced embarrassment these days must surely resemble some sort of febrile disease, an ague brought back from her latest expedition into the field.

She leaves the quartermaster's office with an unsettling uncertainty - his hands were broad enough, but not his shoulders, not quite - and slips into the tavern to address more business. She accepts a verbal report from Sutherland, and can't help but mentally gauge whether he might manage to effectively disguise his thick Starkhaven accent if he wished. She nods hello to Grim, and is suddenly stricken by the suspicion that the man is quiet by design, deliberately refraining from speaking before her so she won't recognize his voice by night. She eyes the Iron Bull's horns from across the room, and finds herself wondering about her midnight lover's insistence that she not touch his head; she swallows thickly and makes a mental note to find a list of all the Vashoth soldiers and mercenaries present in Skyhold, anyone with conspicuous anatomy they'd be eager to conceal.

Elves, too; likewise, she finds herself pausing in Solas' doorway when she leaves the tavern and enters the main hall, studying his profile as he works at a mural, inhaling deeply as she notes the candle-limned curve of his ear. She's well aware of the possibility that every time her mystery man catches her roaming hand and eases it aside, he could be trying to divert her from discovering slender-tipped ears or other elven features. She examines Solas with a growing suspicion; his broad shoulders are certainly a match for her lover's, but the elegant fingers that curl around his paintbrush are far too slim - though gloves can be padded, can't they? For a moment she seriously considers it - his bald head, too, could be a reason to deflect her touch; oh, Maker, _it all fits._ Of course, there's a decided lack of stubble, which is always in evidence when her mystery man leans in close enough to nuzzle her neck; but isn't it also possible that he could be faking the stubble by night for the sake of throwing her off his trail, like a stage performer using pitch to secure a false beard to his jaw?

Maker, she's losing her fucking _mind_ , isn't she?

In the end, she's no closer to being able to figure it out. She wonders, as she pads up the stairs to her quarters, whether she should be keeping notes, mapping it out in a grid like the logic puzzles the Iron Bull and Solas like to set for each other during long evenings around the campfire in the field: _if the cook was away from Skyhold the night her midnight visitor came, and the Orlesian let the tailor borrow his blue scarf, what color is the mystery man's hair?_ It's an insane idea, yet she makes a mental note to approach Commander Cullen to ask for his troop rosters, in case it's feasible to devise some sort of complicated chart of his men's rotations through Skyhold and see if any align conclusively with her mystery man's visits.

She pauses at the top of her stairs, her breath catching in her throat as she surveys her quarters. The room lies awash in late afternoon light, a sheen of undisturbed dust motes glowing amber as they hang illuminated in the air, like the beaded curtain in a fortune-teller's tent. She feels the searing weight of a brief moment's hope light upon her shoulders, as her eyes seek her nightstand, her pillow, her desk - anywhere that _he_ might leave a ribbon-tied box, a note of warning.

If she's being honest, there's a reason why she detoured through the tavern, why she lingered in the great hall; this is yet another bad habit she's cultivated recently, deliberately avoiding her quarters for as long as she can during the day, to give her dragonslayer ample opportunity to sneak up the stairs and leave word of an impending visit. But hope lasts for but a single heart-stilled moment before it slips away, leaving disappointment to settle into the hollow of her belly in its wake. Her pillow is bare; her nightstand empty; her desk covered in towering stacks of neglected paperwork, but no box. She'd known there wouldn't be; it's too soon for another visit, yet she can't quite stem the surge of lonely defeat she feels when it's confirmed that she will be on her own tonight.

She loosens the stays on her tunic as she makes her way wearily to her desk, and wonders what she'll do with her night, instead. She once might have gone to spend her evening with Cassandra, but lately the Seeker has been brushing her off, insisting that she has to retire early to her room with nothing more than thin excuses and an absent smile. She truly should tackle some of her overlooked work, yet as she slides into her chair she notes the ink stain on the rug beneath her desk, from an inkwell that had yielded to the press of an arching back and fallen over the edge the night before, and she blushes as the memories threaten to catch her in their undertow and sweep her away.

Maker help her, but she knows she's going to spend her night the way she spends her days, alternately daydreaming and obsessing over her mystery man's identity.

But she feels a familiar pang of guilt at the thought of all the sleuthing she's been doing; it's obvious from the way her dragonslayer goes to such lengths to conceal his identity that he doesn't _want_ to be identified. She's reminded of a tale from her childhood, the legend of an Antivan prince searching for his lost love by requiring the ladies of his kingdom to try on her discarded lace glove to find a fit; and while she's not sure whether the story holds any truth, she's always thought the prince was rather an ass for forcing his lover to reveal herself when she so clearly didn't wish to.

Yet now, she remembers her dragonslayer's hands spanning her thighs, his breath pooling warm against her skin as he slowly presses his tongue inside her, and ... oh, but she suddenly understands the prince; Maker help her, but she'd give _anything_ to find the hand that fits the glove, herself.

Besides, she wouldn't have to reveal to him that she knows; she can guard the knowledge close to her heart, and go on playing his midnight game. But she aches so badly to learn his measure, to draw the man of her fantasies ever closer to reality. It's killing her not to know what sort of man he truly is, what sort of man - if she's truly being honest with herself - she's slowly falling in love with.

 

* * *

 

But reality refuses to yield for fantasy, and soon it is Cullen's turn to haunt the halls of Skyhold while the Inquisitor is called away to attend to pressing matters in the Exalted Plains.

He tries to occupy himself with work, filling the midnight hours with supply manifests and correspondence and troop rosters - the way he used to, before Varric's void-cursed book altered the course of his life. Yet he finds the hours achingly empty, in a way he'd never stopped to notice before.

He misses her. Maker help him; with a scant half dozen nights spent in her quarters he's only just now had to employ a second hand to count their encounters on, yet the lonely midnights press in on him like an airless void, stealing the breath from his lungs.

Instead he wanders Skyhold feeling cranky and out of sorts, snapping at recruits and officers alike; yet even that makes him miss her, in a strange and deeply bittersweet way. He's always acutely aware, when he shouts at a trainee to raise his shield or forces an underperforming squad out on a disciplinary jog, of his decision to play the dragon for Evelyn's benefit, and the guilt and grief of that necessity weave into a mantle that weighs heavy on his shoulders.

He's crankier still when he comes across a group of soldiers huddled together behind the mess tent, sniggering over a bundle of tattered parchment. He confiscates the document, and soon wishes he hadn't; it turns out to be a short work of fiction written by one of Varric's fans, a _Midnight at Starkeep_ tribute that's being hand-copied and distributed among the ranks. The premise, he discovers, is exactly the same as the original novel, except it's set in some sort of alternate version of reality where the queen of Starkeep is actually a _king_ ; yet his midnight lover is still male. Cullen flushes a deep scarlet as he skims the text, before burying it in his desk and slamming the drawer. Somehow this anonymous author manages to be even more explicit than the dwarf himself; he spends days afterward too red-faced and mortified to look his troops in the eye, anxious to bury himself in his lady's soft curves and erase the memory of what this alternate version of _him_ does under the cover of midnight.

All told, he's left to quietly fret and yearn for nearly three weeks before she returns. The lookouts have only barely spotted the Inquisitor's team riding in at a distance before Cullen races to pilfer yet another rose from the Chantry garden, scrambling up the stairs to leave a note on her pillow even before the blare of the signal trumpets have faded from the chill morning air.

It takes half the day for them to ascend from the valley, and the latter half of the day is spent in a flurry of exhausted activity, unpacking and meetings and a three-hour debriefing around the war table. It's half past eleven by the time she's finally dismissed to her quarters, and Cullen is wracked with guilt as he watches the way she sways on her feet when she gathers her papers and wearily turns to leave, bleary-eyed and still freckled with sweat and dust from the road.

He's being incredibly selfish, he realizes, in his desire to see her again immediately; she's scarcely had any time to herself in weeks, and he would have served her far better to simply leave her alone to rest for a night or three. But it's too late to take the box back now, and he's so anxious to see her - especially in light of the worrying details that have emerged in their debriefing just now - that he can't bring himself to stay away; he quickly readies himself and arrives just past midnight, taking her stairs two at a time.

His heart rides high in his throat as he approaches her quarters, simultaneously hoping and fearing that he'll find the blindfold hanging from her doorknob - their prearranged signal for _not tonight_. He's prepared for the worst; what he _isn't_ expecting is the wash of emotion that nearly drops him to his knees, three weeks of longing and despair swept away by a single moment's surge of joy, when he reaches her door and finds it bare.

Within, she stands blindfolded and waiting, her toes fidgeting nervously against the carpet. She's clearly had to rush to prepare; she hasn't had time to seek an appropriate garment from her lingerie wardrobe, yet she's somehow managed a quick bath - a cold one, if the pink that highlights her skin, tipping her cheeks and tracing an elegant path along her neck and collarbone and, lower, along her bare knees, is any indication. Her hair is dripping wet, combed neatly down her back; and she apparently didn't have time to properly towel herself dry, for the simple linen tunic that she wears - that is _all_ she wears, oversized yet still not quite long enough to fully preserve her modesty - is soaked through in places, the cloth nearly translucent where it clings to her damp curves.

 _Fuck_. Cullen swallows thickly, and stares; he has never seen her sexier. He may be selfish for coming here tonight on such short notice, but sweet fucking _Maker_ , he has never been quite so pleased with his own selfishness.

She starts to say something, but the words are lost to a startled squeal as he surges forward and lifts her off her feet; then the squeal itself vanishes beneath the searing press of his lips as he kisses her desperately, frantic with the weight and worry of three weeks apart. It's only a few short paces to the bed, yet they seem an eternity as he clutches at her, hands squeezing her bottom and fisting in the back of her tunic as he carries her across the room.

He pushes her onto the mattress, her legs dangling over the edge, and follows her down, claiming one rough, frantic kiss after another as his hands slide up her thighs and press them apart. When she moans a broken _'yes_ _'_ against his mouth his hands slip higher; his thumbs seek to trace the edges of her smallclothes, and he groans when he fails to find any. Sweet _Maker_. He's missed her so badly, and he's suddenly so achingly aware of how easy it would be to throw weeks of careful determination to the wind, to free himself from his breeches and his resolve alike in one swift tug of his laces and press into her heat as if _he_ were the one who is, finally, coming home.

Instead, he falls to his knees and tells her, fiercely and profoundly and without a single word, how very much he's missed her.

After, he lies beside her, listening to her breathing grow steady again, feeling guilt slowly pool into the spaces left hollow by all that spent greed. Her hair fans out across the coverlet, separating into fire-burnished strands as it dries, and he turns his face into its softness and breathes in the fresh scent of her soap. There are a thousand apologies dancing on his tongue - for rushing her straight to bed without as much as a hello, as if the sex were the only thing that matters; for devouring her with such frantic selfishness that he's actually made her _scream_ ; but most of all, for coming to her tonight in the first place - but she speaks first, her fingers lacing with his as she sighs and murmurs softly against his ear: _"Thank the Maker you're here."_

Eventually he manages to do the courting that he skipped, the caresses and conversation that usually come _before_ the pleasure, not after; but this time, they're sprawled comfortably in her bed, half propped up against her headboard, her body sagging relaxed and drowsy against his as he softly rakes his fingers through her now-dry hair.

He never comes to her without a drink or something sweet to share; now that he's seen how few pleasures her life holds, he's determinedly focused on bringing her as many small joys as he can, and as often. But tonight he's brought something he's been holding in reserve for a special occasion, a box of delicate treats he's sent away for by mail order, from the Hightown confectioner that was possibly his only good memory of Kirkwall. He feeds her by hand as she recounts a much-censored version of her latest adventures in the field, occasionally interrupting her to place a wisp-thin wafer of butter and sugar on her tongue, watching in fascination as it dissolves and leaves nothing more than a dotting of vanilla bean behind, stroking his thumb down the slender column of her throat as he chases each swallow.

Maker, it feels odd to be in her bed this way, not easing her quietly through some breathless afterglow before slipping away like a thief, but as if he actually _belongs_ there, talking about their day in bed as a _real_ couple might.  An image of tender domesticity flashes into his mind for the briefest of moments, of him sitting up against the pillows reading reports while she brushes her hair and readies for bed beside him, with no blindfold in sight, before he swallows hard and forces that painful fantasy away.

She lifts her head from the crook of his arm, looking nervous and shy and at the same time so proud, and he _knows_ what she's going to tell him even before she wets her lips to speak. He's been bracing himself for it, for the thing that sent his heart plummeting into the pit of his stomach when he first heard it around the war table hours earlier, and even though he knows it's coming it hits him again all the same: "We killed a dragon."

To say that he had not taken the news well, when she'd first told her advisors during her debriefing, was an understatement; in truth, the dragon had likely been better behaved upon being attacked. This time he's had hours to school his emotions, and manages a more gracious response, lifting her hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "I thought dragonslaying was _my_ job, my lady," he murmurs softly.

She draws away from him, burrowing deeper into the nest of pillows that prop her up, and frowns. "You aren't the only one who thinks so, apparently," she says ruefully. "My advisors were _furious._ "

He knows that's not quite true; Josephine had been frantic, most likely at the thought of all the letters she'd be required to write upon the Inquisitor's untimely death, and Leliana seemed quietly impressed. It was all him; _he_ had been ... not furious, not exactly, but how could he tell her? How could he possibly make her understand the raw terror that blinded him upon discovering the pointless risks she and her companions had taken? It isn't that he lacks confidence in her - in truth, he believes she could move the stars in the sky if she set her mind to the task; yet he knows from long experience that there are no sure things in war, knows how easily even the most skilled of fighters might come home from battle wrapped in a sheet. A few ravens sent out to the various Inquisition camps in the region and she could have had a full company of soldiers at her disposal within a day; to take the dragon on with a group of four had been pure folly.

And he may have said as much, quite vehemently, during their meeting. Maker, he hadn't meant to imply that he doubted her abilities; yet no matter how capable he knows her to be, or how many times he's sent her out on impossible missions and watched her come home safely ... this time was different. _Everything_ is different now. He had to stand aside as she rode out, his hands clasped stiffly behind his back, aching to embrace her, to tell her to be careful, to stay safe, to come home to him ... and he _couldn't_. He had to endure three weeks of empty days and emptier midnights, three weeks of missing her and quietly worrying about the dangers she faced in the field, aching to be there to protect her, and he _couldn't_.

And she'd gone and killed a fucking _dragon_ , and he was supposed to take the news like it meant nothing, like _she_ meant nothing; and he couldn't.

 _Maker_. He supposes his outburst at the meeting doesn't matter; he's _supposed_ to be acting like an arse around her, anyhow, building Commander Cullen up to be the dragon her mystery man is fated to slay. He'd certainly acted the part today; and if she wants to interpret his fear for her as anger, she is welcome to it.

In fact, it's even _more_ crucial now, as he's well aware that she's actively trying to track down her midnight lover's identity. He's suspected for a while, but it was made obvious a few days before she departed for the Dales. He'd been in his office reviewing troop movements with one of his aides when he noticed her hovering near the door, as if too timid, already too _afraid_ of him to approach his desk. He'd panicked and sent his unwitting underling on his way with an icy glare and a snarled _"Now!"_ purely to frighten her more; anything to keep her from ever imagining that it could have been _him_ who'd had his head buried between her thighs just the night before.

She'd asked for troop rosters for the past few weeks, and his heart had hammered wildly in his throat as he asked her, under the guise of professional concern, if there was anyone in particular among his ranks he should be keeping an eye on. The thought that she might be suspicious, perhaps not of _him_ in particular but of a man of military bearing in general, shook him deeply; it was a relief, then, when she requested _all_ his records, with a particular focus on elves and qunari. She can't suspect; she can't have come anywhere near the truth if she's casting such a wide net, and the results of sifting through all that data, even if she has the time and resources to accomplish such a thing, won't point to an officer who is above scheduled tours and rotating duties.

Yet it's obvious that he has to redouble his efforts to paint himself as a villain, even if his heart slowly shatters each time he's forced to do it. Because _Maker_ , any fragile hope he might have secretly harbored, during his long hours spent pacing the ramparts while she was away, of finding some sort of happy ending to this mess someday dwindles and dies each time he's forced to play the dragon before her.

His lady's face is tilted toward his as she awaits his response, the blindfold a dark slash above her gently blushing cheeks; he reaches out a trembling glove and cups her jaw, stroking her skin with soft sweeps of his thumb. " _He's_ troubling you again, is he?" he says, at last, and feels the threads of his deception knit tighter yet, threatening to suffocate him. He tries to speak; swallows thickly, then tries again. "How anyone could have so little faith in you is beyond me."

He presses a soft kiss to her lips, then rests his forehead against her temple and murmurs into her ear - honestly, now that he's had time to assure himself that she truly is safe and whole and well: "I'm proud of you, my lady;" and it was, perhaps, worth all the terror and worry, simply to see the brilliant smile that answers.

In time the conversation and sweets run out before the firelight does; it's still far earlier than he usually leaves, yet he knows he should probably let her sleep. She's drowsing quietly against the headboard, her oversized shirt slipping from one shoulder. He suspects it's what she wears to bed on the nights when he's not there, and the idea of her wandering her quarters bare-thighed in a tunic that is not terribly unlike the one he wears himself is strangely arousing; he can't help but reach out and run his palm along the curve of her shoulder, warming the exposed skin there and easing the fabric lower down her arm.

He bends to press a tender kiss to the place where her neck and shoulder slope together, and she lets out a sleepy sigh; so different from the sounds he coaxed from her earlier, yet so alluring all the same. He should go, yet he doesn't want to leave her side; oh, _Maker_ , how he wants to stay, to counterbalance the fierce, fast pleasure of earlier with something gentle and so achingly slow. He wants to consume her softly - for hours, if need be; to set her adrift on waves of dream-like pleasure until she finally sinks into the depths of sleep with his hands on her thighs and his tongue moving elegant and slow, like a tide softly lapping the shore, between them.

So when she murmurs "Who are you?" drowsily against his ear, he takes his time in answering, shifting her tunic lower and cupping his hand under the pale breast that's revealed as the fabric slides free. He rumbles his response against her skin as he dusts a lazy trail of kisses along the swell of her shoulder, slowly stroking her nipple to an aching peak with his thumb; he smiles in satisfaction at the way she arches to fill his palm, at the sleepy gasp that escapes her parted lips.

"I am a man who has missed you," he says, and gently eases her down to the mattress so he can spend the night showing her exactly _how_.

 

* * *

 

Evelyn leaves the dining hall after sharing dinner with Leliana - if it could truly be called _dinner_ , when the meal sat ignored beside them while they reviewed a small mountain of intelligence reports - and makes her way upstairs. She feels weary and utterly drained; she's anxious to retreat to the calm of her room at last. It's been a hectic, stressful week - but then, the weeks after coming home from a field excursion always are; the work doesn't cease to pile up simply because she's away.

If she's honest with herself, she's anxious to get upstairs for a reason that has nothing - or perhaps everything - to do with unwinding after a long day's work. _Please_ , she thinks as she opens the door that leads from the great hall to her tower and slips inside. _Please_. A raven startles at her presence in the landing hall, stirring a shimmering spiral of dust as it takes wing into the rafters. _Please_. She ascends the first short flight of stairs, and eases the door to her quarters ajar; within, a flare of sunset light spills through the latticework windows overhead, sending a slant of sun-gilt diamonds to dance across the staircase wall. _Please,_ she thinks, the word starting to echo in rhythm with her footfalls as she climbs the stairs. _Please. Please. Please. Please._

As her bed comes into view through the stair railing, she sees a flash of white box stock against the dark blue of her bedspread, a splash of red ribbon, and a sob of relief rends her lungs. _Thank the Maker._

She needs him. She needs his company; he's been to her twice since she returned from the Exalted Plains, yet it hasn't been _nearly_ enough to make up for three weeks of missing him, of spending every moment plagued by a bittersweet longing, wishing he were beside her seeing the same wonders, sharing in her experiences. And with the added stress that always comes of catching up with whatever crises have befallen the Inquisition while she was away, she needs the comfort of his body more than ever; she needs ... she needs....

To be honest, she needs something tonight that she's not sure he'll ever be willing to give.

She sighs and flops sideways onto her bed. She can hardly fault her dragonslayer for being a gentleman; she appreciates the tender care he takes with her body, the generous attention he pays her. While he had been hesitant in his skill at first - in fact, she wonders if she had _been_ his first - he'd never lacked for the earnestness and consideration that truly matters; and with each visit he's slowly grown into an astonishingly satisfying lover. Yet ... Maker help her, but it's no longer quite _enough_. His visits have always ever been about _her_ , and while it seems incredibly ungrateful to regret that fact ... just as telling him about her experiences in the Dales was a pale substitute for him actually _being_ there in person ... she wants more. She wants _all_ of him.

For the Maker's sake, he's never even really _touched_ her, not truly. She's only ever felt his gloves on her body; aside from the occasional brush of his jaw on her neck or his cheek resting against her thigh, she's never actually been in contact with his skin, and she feels suddenly impoverished for the lack of knowing the satin shift of his skin, body bare and fevered against hers. But how could she, when he tries so hard to be proper, only ever lifting her skirts or parting her buttons as much as necessary? She's never been fully naked before him; and he has never even so much as undone a single button or lace of his own clothing.

She's tried; but every time she reaches for his laces or attempts to pull his shirt over his head he stops her, as if giving in to his own needs - or even recognizing them - were a crime. He won't even acknowledge his own desire; he tries so hard to hide his arousal from her, carefully angling his hips away from her as they lie in bed together. She wants so badly to break past those barriers, to _give_ him something in return for his affections instead of endlessly taking, to _share_....

She'd thought, that night a week ago, when he'd swept her off her feet and carried her to the bed ... for a single heart-clenched, breath-stilled moment, she'd thought he was _finally_ going to give her what she so ached for ... and while what followed could never be considered a disappointment ... _Maker_ , how she wished for more.

She stands and paces slowly to the window. Beyond, the final golden bands of sunset wink out behind the mountains, leaving a soft dusk to settle across Skyhold like a lavender veil. It's strange, she muses; for all that he so generously gives, her mystery man holds _so much_ back, and not just physically. Getting to know his mind is just as futile as trying to learn his body; he gives so very little of himself, either way. She tries there, too; but for every story she shares of her childhood, her family, her _self_ , he reciprocates with something deliberately impersonal, as if he's terrified of letting anything slip that might be traced back to him. He tells her of the secluded pond where he sought peace as a boy; though when she asks him who he's seeking quiet _from_ he abruptly changes the subject, as if admitting to something as universal as having a family, siblings, might somehow reveal him. He tells her of once freeing a captured bird from a fishing net, and while it speaks volumes to the kind of man he truly is, the aloofness of it rather stings.

Maker, she wants more of him _there_ , too. She wants uncensored conversation and knowledge freely given; silly stories and easy chatter about his past, his friends, his family. She aches to spend time with him beyond the bedroom, or at least beyond the blindfold. She longs to pass an afternoon with him in the honeyed silence of the library, to lay with her head on his stomach reading a book. She wants to take a meal beside him in the dining hall, to introduce him to Cassandra and Sera and have him join in the rambunctious absurdity of their book club. And as she looks out the window, trying to see past her own mournful reflection in the glass to where the stars begin to hesitantly order themselves into constellations across the still-pale sky.... _Maker_ , but she wants more than anything to stand on the balcony with him, nestling into the safety of his arms as they watch the stars together, before retreating to the warmth of the bed to spend the night making love.

 _Impossible_.

And yet....

She turns from the window to the amber-lit warmth of the room, her heart hitching in her throat. _What if ...?_ He gives her so very much. Time, affection, gifts; he showers her with treats and wines and, once, some well-aged drink that glittered rose-gold in its half-empty flask on her nightstand the next morning, without ever asking for anything in return. He gives her pleasure again and again, with such care and consideration, without a single thought of taking his own ease. Yet he's never once accepted any of the favors she's offered in return, never taking anything for himself - and perhaps _that's_ the problem.

She's always _offered_ , expecting him to _take_.

Perhaps she needs to _ask,_ so he can _give_.

Her breath hangs in her lungs as she feels the world shift around her, and she's not certain whether it's excitement or terror that plays the larger role in the speed of her heart and the flutter of her belly as she turns and stalks into her closet. Her hands tremble as she reaches for the trunk where she keeps her lingerie wardrobe and raises the lid.

He's spent so many nights seducing her. Tonight, it's _her_ turn.

The chest is stacked high with flat white clothier's boxes, each stamped with the insignia of some expensive tailor in Val Royeaux. She carries them all to the bed and spreads them out, thankful that she still has hours yet to prepare; she's determined to plan this night just right.

She makes a mess of her bedroom, opening each box in turn to inspect the garments within, trying on the ones that catch her fancy. She discards the gowns that are too revealing, one by one; she doesn't want to be too obvious in her intent. She thinks that, for her midnight lover, subtlety is best; she suspects he would better appreciate the allure of wondering what's beneath a well-draped piece that hugs her curves, instead of something short and sheer that flaunts them. She casts aside a corset cut so low that her breasts spill completely bared from it - _Maker_ , what was Vivienne _thinking?_ \- and opens one last box, folding back the crinkling paper within and pulling out a sweep of cloth that makes her gasp in delight.

 _Perfect_.

She stands in the middle of her box-strewn room, feeling uncertainty billow in her belly like curtains in a breeze at the thought of what she's begun. She's not sure what will happen later, when, deep in the night, once they've shared their usual time-stilled kisses and trembling intimacies, she takes him by the hand and asks for what she needs. Maybe he won't be ready - maybe he'll _never_ be ready - and that's all right; she can live with that, if that's truly the case.

But oh, _Maker_ ... maybe, just maybe ... he's only been waiting for her to _ask._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10: In which the author struggles to tie together roughly two thousand tiny ideas and details from her notes folder and ends up with a giant train wreck of a chapter. Thank you all for standing by me; I love you all! ❤


	11. Chapter 11

Midnight comes on slippered feet, settling softly over Skyhold like a whispered prayer. It's strange, she realizes, but Evelyn doesn't need to listen for the toll of the Chantry bell anymore to mark the approach of the hour. Midnight has a quality all its own, now that she's attuned to it, a certain atmosphere that is unique to the hour; she knows it by the singular stillness in the air, by the peculiar hushed clarity of sound, by the distinct way the shadows press for advantage against the amber arc of light that spills from the fireplace grate.

When she's certain the hour is upon her she reaches for the blindfold on her nightstand, casting one last glance about her room. No outward sign of her earlier frenzy remains; her clothes have all been crammed, unfolded, back into their chest, and her bed lies empty and turned down, clean sheets of white Orlesian satin waiting expectantly for someone to slide between them.

She swallows hard and turns away.  She's still no more certain what will actually _happen_ in that bed tonight, and she can't quite calm the nerves that flutter in her belly. She has wavered a thousand times tonight, as she bathed and dressed, one moment cool, collected, _ready;_ the next as trembling and terrified as a Chantry virgin. It isn't that she fears him - she trusts him completely with her physical safety. It's been ages since she's even thought of hiding a weapon beneath her pillow; she takes a much different sort of precaution before his visits, now.

But he makes her feel vulnerable in a way that she's unaccustomed to anymore. Being Inquisitor has changed her; or, at least, has forced her to secret away the essence of who she truly is, carefully curating what parts of her the world is allowed to see and hiding away the bits that don't fit the Inquisition's narrative of power and strength. She's learned to make tough decisions without wavering, to treat with kings as if she were their equal, to face down deadly enemies without hesitating; and when she inevitably _does_ waver, and doubt, and fear, those emotions - her very _humanness_ \- are forced to turn within, like the flame inside a hooded lantern.

But her Dragonslayer ... he gives her permission to _burn_. With him, she feels closer to her true self than she has in ages - closer, in truth, than she _ever_ has, even before the Inquisition began to methodically scour that sense of _self_ away. And it is the greatest gift she has ever known ... and the greatest danger. He has the power to shatter her in a way that none of her enemies or political rivals ever could, for if she offers him _herself,_ at her truest and most terrifyingly authentic; if she lays herself bare and places herself, open, unguarded, _exposed_ , in his hands....

If she offers him that, _and he rejects it...._

She swallows again, suddenly feeling incredibly small, and resolutely forces the thought away. The Chantry bell begins to ring, right on time, the sound muffled and faint beyond the windows, and she welcomes the distraction as she follows the noise, padding barefoot to the balcony door. The glass panes are veiled by a soft breath of frost, lit to an ethereal glow by the moonlight beyond; she feels like she's walking into a dreamscape as she unlatches the door and steps through.

Outside, the feeling of otherworldliness intensifies; she stops for a moment, her breath arrested in her throat, simply to stare. After months of an active Breach shedding Fade-matter into the sky, this part of Thedas remains marked by it, even with the Breach now long-closed. The escaping wisps of magical energy have slowly spiraled away from their source, gradually dissipating the further they drift from Haven, invisible by day but often, when conditions align, luminous by night.

Tonight, the sky is transcendent; a pearled jade shimmer billows in the sky above like a line-dried bedsheet caught in a gentle breeze, the ribbons of soft energy weaving with wispy, silver-bellied clouds to form a skyscape that feels electric and alive. Beyond the moon-limned clouds, a dark veil hangs low over Skyhold, heavy with glittering stars; here, at the top of the Frostbacks, shimmering cold and bright in the crisp mountain air, the stars feel so near that for a moment she is convinced that her lover could pluck them one by one from the sky and lay them at her feet, if only she asked.

She moves slowly to the railing as the toll of the Chantry bell echoes across the valley below, feeling the cold of the paving stones nip at the pads of her feet. She's chosen the north-facing balcony for its seclusion, and while it is private, it feels profoundly lonely; the mountains loom close and tall in an arc around her, edges dark against the backdrop of stars, as if some giant beast has taken a great jagged-toothed bite from the night sky. But their slopes sparkle with the kiss of moonlight on ice, the glitter of frost-glazed snow, until they rival the brilliance of the stars above; and the glacial shelf below reflects the Fade-green aurora in its shimmering surface until, for one dizzying moment as she places a hand on the railing and leans over, the world inverts. Down becomes up, and she feels a flash of something that is at once cold terror and exhilarating joy, convinced for just a moment that if she were to release her white-knuckled grip on the railing she could fall into the sky and drift forever among the stars, like a boat upon glass-still waters.

She forces herself to step away, and tries to calm the wild drumming of her heart as she frees the blindfold from clenched fingers and lifts it to her eyes. The world goes dark as the toll of the bell climbs to twelve and hovers there, a final, still note quivering in the chill night air as she secures the blindfold's knot.

She's left waiting for only a moment before her midnight visitor's footstep rasps on the stair; the sound falters as he enters the room and finds it empty. The brief silence that follows is thick with palpable concern. "My lady?" he calls out, and there's a hitch in his voice that catches her off guard. She realizes, too late, that he's likely assessing the scene with a Dragonslayer's eye - the unmade bed; the candlelight stirred to a froth by the cold breeze admitted by wide-open doors - and drawing the worst of conclusions to explain her unexpected absence.

While allowing him to sound the alarm that she's been abducted from her quarters _would_ solve the question of his identity, that isn't quite how she wants this night to go; she's quick to set him at ease. "Out here," she calls, amusement softening her nerves as she waits for him to track the trail of her voice, words dropped like breadcrumbs for him to follow. "Come join me on the balcony."

"My lady?" he says again, no less uncertain. "What are you doing?" He doesn't like it, this unexpected deviation from their usual script; she hears the uneasiness that edges his voice, his initial fear for her safety shifting into a different sort of fear as he shuffles cautiously to the doorway. He still worries, even after all these visits, that he might blunder into a trap - that she's waiting to surprise him _sans_ blindfold, or has a friend poised on the one visible tower at the corner of the keep, ready with a spyglass to identify him. "Come back inside; you'll catch a—"

She hears it in his voice - or lack thereof - the moment he reaches the open door and sees her at last; the words falter and die in his throat, stolen along with his breath.

She waits, measuring time by the thundering beats of her heart, before slowly turning to face him. She spent enough time obsessing in front of the mirror earlier, going back again and again to nervously straighten imagined flaws in the drape of her robe or check for errant strands of hair, wanting every detail to be perfect for him; she's well aware of the figure she cuts, before the starry splendor of the Fade-streaked sky.

The robe she found, forgotten and waiting at the bottom of her wardrobe, could only have been made for this night alone, as if some clairvoyant tailor were sitting back in Val Royeaux at that very moment, toasting her success with a knowing smile. She's draped in midnight blue, the soft weave stitched with thousands of tiny clear glass beads that glitter as they dance down the robe's flowing length and scatter over its trailing hem and full sleeves; caught in the light of two silver moons, she must rival the brilliance of the stars above, as if she were clad in the night sky itself.

She hears her midnight lover try to speak as he takes one halting step out onto the balcony, then another; but words fail to form beyond the tight shudder of his breath. He's likely never seen this much of her body bared at once before; while she remains clad on the side of decency, the robe is only slightly fitted, and she's intentionally belted it loosely so it hangs low on her shoulders and hips. The moon-gilt span of her collarbone, the lush slopes of her breasts, and a soft expanse of belly are revealed in a deep V before the fabric joins low on her waist, tied by a lax-bowed sash. The hem parts again at her thigh, first exposing one long, bare leg, then the other as she shifts in place. Her hair is freshly washed, worn loose, soft and curling down her back, leaving her freckled shoulders bare; her creamy skin glows in the silvered moonlight. She's never felt quite so elegant or graceful, or so _exposed_ , as she waits a long moment for him to compose himself and attempt to speak again.

"You—" His voice is thick with emotion, with unmistakable _want_ , as his hands light softly at her waist, thumbs skimming the beaded fabric. "You look ... you're—" He swallows away the words that refuse to come, draws a jagged breath, and tries others with more success. "What are you doing out here, my lady?"

She turns back to the view that she can't see, resting her hands lightly on the railing. "I want to watch the stars," she says, raising her face to the sky.

She leans back, her head tilting against his shoulder; but the arms that haltingly slip around her are taut with tension.  "I —" He swallows nervously, clearly ill at ease with the situation he's found himself in; he must assume that the blindfold has to come off at some point in order to achieve her goal. "I - uh - you must be freezing," he hedges anxiously. "You should come inside— "

She chuckles softly. "You'll keep me warm," she assures him, and nestles back into the circle of his arms in demonstration. After a moment he yields, his hands sliding to her sleeves as the allure of the task he's been set proves greater than his fear. He skims her arms softly, gloves slowly rubbing warmth into her skin through the fabric of her robe, and she sighs in contentment.

"Isn't it beautiful tonight?" she asks, and feels him chuff against her neck in response; the delicious contradiction of warm breath and chill air sends a shiver skating along the length of her spine.

"I'm sure it is," he breathes against her ear. "Yet I can't seem to take my eyes off _you_."

It is, perhaps, the smoothest thing he's ever said to her; feeling both embarrassed and incredibly pleased, she begins to giggle. "That was _terrible_ ," she teases lightly, ducking her head. "The biggest cliché in the book."

"Mhhh, was it?" Her Dragonslayer sounds at once disgruntled and amused, as he brushes his lips along the arc of her neck.

"Maker, yes. May I offer some advice?" She waits for his murmur of assent before continuing, her words stumbling around an arrested draw of breath as he lays a trail of well-placed kisses down the slope of her throat. "If a - ah! - a line appears in a Varric Tethras novel, you probably shouldn't use it in real life."

He rumbles a chuckle against the curve of her shoulder. "Fair enough."

Somehow, as it always does, the uncertainty that has plagued her all evening quietly slips away, nerves yielding to an effervescent _happiness_ at being here with him, held in the safety of his arms. She snuggles into his solid bulk, her back against his muscled chest, and feels him relax by degrees as he lazily runs his hands up and down her arms, methodically lending her his warmth. "So ... the stars?" he murmurs in her ear, indulging her whim at last.

"Watch them with me?" Before he has a chance to protest, she adds: "You'll have to be my eyes."

He hums contentedly against her neck, and shifts his stance so she can settle in closer, shielding her from a soft breeze with the curve of his shoulder. "As my lady wishes."

His arms slip around her, and she shudders as his sleeve rides up and an exposed wrist drags slowly across her bare midriff, skin to skin. He holds her there, caging her lightly in a circle of soft touch and body heat as he lifts his head and considers the Fade-tarnished sky. "Do you know your constellations, my lady?" he asks.

"Only the ones that appeared in classical literature," she admits, distracted by the gloved fingers that rest delicately against the beaded cloth at her belly. "My education wasn't a very practical one."

His face has already drifted back to the crook of her neck, as if the star-blown heavens truly _can't_ compete with her for his attention; she shivers as his lips softly press against the fluttering hollow of her pulse. "Ah, yes, a student of the arts. I remember."

"For all the good it did me." A rueful half-laugh hangs in her throat; she's comfortable enough in her role now, but it still bruises to think back on the early days when she was utterly useless, those first few field missions when Varric had to quietly take her aside and teach her basic skills like how to read a map or light a campfire. "Having a bit of real-world knowledge would have been far more useful, especially when we travel. I know how to use the Sword of Mercy to find the north star, but that's about it."

He chuckles delicately. "The Sword of Mercy points _east_ ," he says, then laughs in earnest as she blurts out a most unladylike swear.

"That explains the scenic detour we took in the Fallow Mire," she says. Oh, _Maker_ , she'd better hope Cassandra never learns of her mistake; her friend would likely murder her.

He's still laughing softly against her neck; she gives him a gentle elbow to the ribs. "Do you know them?" she asks. It wouldn't surprise her; most of the people who came to the Inquisition brought with them the practical skills that she herself had lacked, and many, from solider to spy, merchant to mercenary, might have trained in navigation as a routine course of study. Yet she hangs on his answer, starving for even the tiniest scrap of new insight into his character, aching to know him just that much more. "Surely they teach such things in Dragonslaying school," she teases.

"Ah," he says, and his laughter stills in his throat. "My education was focused on more worldly matters, I'm afraid. I, uh—" The moment stretches as he measures his response thoughtfully, his fingers unconsciously strumming soft chords across her belly. "I studied the stars on my own, somewhat later."

She's impressed, and intrigued. She's already well aware of his discipline, that quiet focus that asserts itself to her advantage in the still hours past midnight; but study for its own sake also illuminates a love of learning that she finds deeply admirable. "For pleasure?"

"I suppose you could say that," he says slowly, turning each word over and considering it carefully before speaking it aloud. "They were constant, and at the time, my life was ... not. And I ... " He pauses to draw a jagged breath against her neck, his grip going taut at her waist. "I just needed for something in the world to make sense."

She swallows thickly; it is perhaps the most profound thing he has confided in her yet, and she feels the place in her heart where she carries him stretch and yield as this new piece of him works its way in and gently slots itself into place. It's all she can do to stop herself from taking him by the hand then and there and pulling him to the bed, to fill the night with softness until no hard edges remain to trouble old wounds. She wants to ask him if _this_ makes sense, if she is saving him from the abyss as much as he is saving her; but the words won't take shape. Instead, she places her hands on his, weaving her fingers with his gloved ones. "Show me," she whispers.

"Hmmm." He looks to the stars again, his stubble rasping softly against her cheek as he tilts his face to the sky. "Let's see ... it looks like the Shadow is out tonight, my lady," he murmurs, and gently takes one pair of their interlaced hands and lifts them from where they rest on her stomach, "there." He slowly extends her arm, supporting it with his own, until they're pointing together to a spot along the northeast horizon. "Or Tenebrium, if you're fancy."

The intimacy of the gesture catches her by surprise; with his guidance she can picture the spot where the constellation hangs low in the sky, just above the cusp of the mountain range. "That's the one that resembles an owl?" she asks.

"So they say. There's the wing, there...." His breath stirs the hair at her temple, warm against chilled skin, as he slowly moves their hands, tracing from one star to another, and another. "And there's the tail...." The movement reminds her of the hand gestures Leliana's spies use to communicate with each other silently in the field, but instead of conveying words he's gifting her sight; she can picture the arcing sweep of a wing, a triangular fan of feathers. "You're familiar with it?"

"The owl imagery was popular in Blessed Age poetry." She draws a breath, anchored as his hand returns to its place on her belly, and recites a few lines in flawless Orlesian, part of some sonnet that quietly flows in on a tide of memory.

Her Dragonslayer stills against her, mesmerized; he gently rests his face in the curve of her shoulder, listening. "That was beautiful, my lady," he breathes when she's finished. "But I'm afraid I didn't understand a word of it."

She chuckles softly, and begins to translate. " _On shadowed wings doth passion slowly rise, o'er gentle hills and vales soft in sleep...._ " She takes advantage of his relaxed stance and nestles deeper into the warmth of his body, pressing her bottom with deliberate care against his thigh; he draws a ragged breath against her shoulder, but doesn't move away. _"Tenebrium a faithful watch shall keep, o'er lovers' bodies twined 'neath starry skies_."

He drifts on the currents of her voice, lips pressed to the soap-sweet skin of her shoulder, and remains silent for a long, breathless moment after she's finished the quatrain, softly running his hands up and down her sides. "Who else is looking down on us tonight?" she prompts gently.

"I—" He sounds dazed, as if waking from a dream; his hands skim lower and lightly frame her hips, his attention clearly transfixed on the place where their bodies are joined. "Right. The stars." He swallows away whatever emotion thickens his voice, and considers the sky for a moment. "There, my lady," he says; but instead of reaching for her hand again, he presses his cheek to hers, gently tilting her silk-covered gaze to the west. "Equinor is out, or mostly; there, just past that cloud."

"Equinor?" she asks, distracted by his nearness, by the peppermint breath that fans warm across her cheek.

"The Stallion," he says, and she feels his voice rumble against the curve of her neck; her toes curl against the stone of the balcony in response. "Or a griffon, depending on who you ask. To be honest, I can't see either."

He sounds faintly disgruntled by that fact, and she giggles softly. "Show me?"

He hesitates for such a long moment that she begins to wonder whether he even heard her; then she feels his hand light softly, not on her own hand as she expects, but against her collarbone. She trembles as he slowly brushes a slanted stripe across her bare skin with his fingertips. "Two stars join," he murmurs against her ear, "like this." His touch is deliciously warm, the thin leather of his glove softened by body heat until it's melded to his fingertips like a second skin. "And then...." His fingers trace another line across her breastbone, slipping beneath the fabric of her robe to complete their trajectory against the soft upper swell of her breast, "they meet another, here, to form the Stallion's head."

She swallows hard, feeling heat spread low in her belly with each slow, deliberate drag of warm fingertips against chilled skin. He slides the backs of two fingers down the curve of her breast, his voice a soft, low growl against her ear as he describes the constellation he's sketching on her skin. "And here, the mane...." His touch paints a long line down her midriff, following the deep V of skin left exposed by her robe's open neckline. "Then the back," he husks as he slides his hand under the loose barrier of her sash and continues idly weaving stars together across the tender skin of her stomach, her muscles pulling taut at his advance.

The slow torment is almost unbearable. Her arousal has been on a low simmer for hours, ever since she found the note heralding his visit earlier, and each searing touch, each breathy word formed deep in his throat, deepens the ache. She squirms as his glove skims lower, etching the triangular point of Equinor's tail over the seam of her inner thigh; then lets out a whimper of frustration as his touch drifts north again to complete the shape. Everything about the moment feels so intensely intimate. He's still pressed to her, cheek to cheek; she can feel the tip of his nose brush her face as he speaks, can feel the muscles in his neck work aside hers each time he swallows. And with his chest molded tight against her back, she can feel every word he speaks rumble to life against her shoulder blades, feel each breath he takes hang shuddering in his lungs.

He's never permitted her so close before, physically. The pressure of his body feels like a privilege and a gift as he skims his fingers back down to trace the Stallion's hind legs against her other thigh, and yet somehow, _still_ , it's not enough. She aches to feel him; she shifts her bottom gently, experimentally, and brushes up against the hot press of his arousal. The contact lasts for only a fleeting second, before he draws in a strangled breath and pulls his hips away; but it's enough to send a flush of pure _want_ jolting through her, her pulse dizzyingly loud as it thunders in her ears.

His hands and voice alike are shaky as he finishes shaping the rearing Stallion's forelegs against her midriff, and she knows she's affected him. _Why_ , then, does he insist on holding back? A few more slow strokes and Equinor is complete, a searing web of touch that she can still feel tingling on her body as if there truly _were_ a constellation of stars scintillating against her skin; and as he traces the final line that links the last star to the first she tries again, deliberately canting her hips and sliding against him as if trying to chart new constellations of her own against the scalding throb of his cock.

She moans as their bodies meet; _sweet Maker_. He's achingly hard and hot and _everything_ she wants and needs tonight, but again he quickly pulls away, this time arresting the grind of her hips with his hands. He stands that way for a long moment, gasping against her shoulder; his hands tremble where they grip her, gloves bracketing her hipbones, thumbs pressing almost to the point of pain. "My lady," he pleads brokenly.

"Please," she whispers, breathless.

For a moment the world hangs on that word; the stars press close and silent in their Fade-bright sky, waiting. She wants to sob and beg: _I want to feel you, I NEED to feel you, oh Maker please;_ but she stops herself, swallowing thickly to force the words away. She knows she needs to be careful tonight; she fears the possibility that he might end up doing something he truly doesn't wish to, simply because she asks, simply because he will not tell his lady _no_.

Instead, she gently rests her hands on his, at her hips; she runs her thumbs over the leather of his gloves, until his fingers turn and intertwine with hers. "Do you want me?"

He groans hoarsely into the crook of her neck. "You know I do," he whispers.

A flush of heat answers his words, and she draws in a shivering breath. "What's stopping you?" she asks, gently.

He tries to speak; swallows, tries again. "You're the Inquisitor," he says simply, as if that explains it all; yet there is so much that goes unspoken in those few words, so much exquisite longing and aching self-doubt evident in his voice, in the hands that tremble at her hips.

It's the first time he's ever mentioned her title, here in the soft sanctuary of midnight. Tears bead like stars in her lashes, worlds of emotion hanging in those tiny constellations as she realizes that he hesitates, not because of who she is, but because of who he _isn't_. "Not here," she says fiercely. "Not when I'm with you. _Never_ when I'm with you."

She can feel him warring with himself, huffing ragged breaths on her shoulder as he battles against some internal dragon, his fingers closing tight around hers; it's only then that she permits herself to press the matter home. " _Please_ ," she says at last, her voice cracking under the weight of that word. "I need to feel you."

For a minute he hovers there, as if he's experiencing his own moment of inversion between the star-glittered mountains and the glass-green sky, unable to tell which way is up, or which way the world will tilt when he falls. Then all at once some desperate inner victory is reached; a strangled sob of relief rends his lungs as he fists his hands in her robe and pulls her back against him.

Instead of the heat and hunger she's expecting, there is something easy and exquisitely tender in the trembling shift of his hips, as he tentatively fits their bodies together. She whimpers softly at the contact, feeling warmth bloom low in her belly; he noses her hair aside so he can lay a quivering line of kisses across the nape of her neck and she grinds slowly into him, savoring the warm press of his body, the throb of his arousal against her aching core, the splay of his hands on her thighs as he anchors her against him. He's shaking, overwhelmed; and, if she's honest, so is she. "We - ah! - we were watching the stars?" she prompts, trying to ease the intensity of the moment, and he takes the offered lifeline gratefully.

"So we were," he chuckles unsteadily. "Let's see...." He runs a gloved fingertip under her chin and gently strokes her head upward, directing her attention toward the spot where she knows she'd see the Sword of Mercy if she were able, glittering cold and distant at the apex of the sky. "There, my lady; I see your old friend Judex, right above us." He takes advantage of her exposed neck to nip softly, punctuating the graze of his teeth with a shy press of hips. "The hilt, there, just over your head ... and the blade, pointing _east...._ "

"Arse," she giggles, directing a gentle elbow at his ribs.

He laughs breathlessly and wraps his arms around her, the knuckles of one hand skimming along the neckline of her robe to idly trace the plump cleavage that swells there. "It was my favorite, once," he says; but the shadow of some old regret lends just a hint of bittersweetness to the words, and she wonders if he, too, once counted on the Sword and lost his way. "Probably because it's the only constellation that actually looks like the damned thing it's supposed to," he adds mulishly, and she giggles again, the sound catching in her throat and melting into a moan as his hand slides warm under her robe and cups an aching breast.

"Show me," she whimpers.

He swallows a shuddering breath against her ear as his thumb drags slowly across her nipple and back, teasing it to a diamond point. " _My lady_ ," he growls; and here, deprived of her sight, with nothing but the silence of the stars stretching into infinity, his voice spreads through her like warm honey, deep and rumbly and just a touch dangerous. "The cross-guard ... starts _here_ ," he says; but instead of dusting a single star onto the peak of her breast he swirls entire galaxies there, circling gloved fingertips across her nipple again and again with a slowness that borders on excruciating.

It's not until she's sagging weak-kneed against him that he finally shifts his hand, trailing his fingers up the slant of her breastbone. "Then the grip extends, like this ... to the pommel." He runs his knuckles along the arc of her throat, and when she tips her head back he presses his mouth to the tender hollows left exposed. Her toes curl against the paving stones as he scatters kisses like stars up the slope of her neck and along her jaw, slowly searing constellations into her skin with the graze of his teeth and the drag of his tongue.

When his hand leaves her throat and begins a slow arc downward, his lips remain, lingering in the soft divot behind her ear. "And then," he groans between kisses, nuzzling her earlobe with the tip of his nose, "back ... again ... to the cross-guard." His fingertips tremble as they brush lightly down her collarbone and coax the beaded cloth of her robe aside. He cups her other breast as if it were as precious as stardust, achingly thorough as he patiently strokes her nipple into a peak to match its twin, and she shudders and sighs at the delicious slide of warmed leather against too-tender skin, at the fevered gusts of breath that chase the chill air from her neck.

From there his other hand begins to shape the Sword of Mercy's blade, fingertips etching an exquisite path down her midriff. His hand slips under the sash of her robe, and a flush of anticipation spreads through her belly; she gasps breathlessly as his fingers splay warm over her stomach, sketching broad, lazy strokes across her quaking muscles. He's just as patient here, his hands drifting in slow orbit around her, caught in her gravity as they softly strum warmth at her belly and breast.

His hand skims lower still, fingertips brushing lightly through the curls between her thighs before tracing an agonizingly slow arc back up to her navel; they circle there for a moment, then stray downward again, even slower than before. An exquisite tension builds as he slowly, slowly traces fire across her skin, skimming his fingers right where she wants them then pulling away a second time, a third, until she fears she will die for the lack of him.

She makes a strangled noise and tries to rock back into the press of his hips, desperate for friction; he shudders and bites down on the seam where her neck meets her shoulder, bracing himself against her. "I need you," she moans, the words riding the saw-blade edge of a gasped breath.

"I'm here, my lady," he assures her; his own voice has gone taut with want, ragged and breathless. His hands drift to her hips and he takes a small step backward; she mewls in protest as the warm comfort of his body is replaced by a rush of chill air at her back. He gently turns her so she's facing him, and slowly sinks to his knees before her; his gloved touch brushes lightly between her knees as he parts her robe. "I'm right here."

She trembles as his fingertips skim softly up her inner thighs. He clearly means to pleasure her here against the balcony rail; but while it would be utterly lovely to simply surrender to the press of his mouth, to drift among the stars as he writes constellations on her body with his tongue, to shatter into stardust beneath the glittering vastness of the midnight sky ... it's not what she wants.

" _No_ ," she says.

His hands still against her. "My lady?" he asks, confused.

Her heart pounds as she stands shaking before him, trying to summon the courage to act on a decision long made. She still has no idea what will happen tonight, whether his hesitant new willingness to be touched will translate into a readiness for something _more_. All she knows is that she wants him, _all_ of him; wants to take all the broken pieces that he tries to guard so carefully and make them her own.

She's ready to take his hand and leap; to see whether she falls, or lands softly among the stars.

Her knees sway weakly as she takes a trembling, tentative step around him, toward her bedroom door. His hand slips from her body as she moves away, and she's acutely aware of his presence behind her, kneeling stock-still where she left him, watching concerned and perplexed as she takes another step in the direction of the door, and another.

She swallows thickly, tries to speak, and finds she can't. There are no words for everything she wants to tell him; all she can do is show him, and pray he understands. Her fingers fumble, shaking, at her sash as she tries again to press words past the knot of emotion that has formed in her throat.

"I mean ... I _need_ you tonight," she says fiercely; and slowly, deliberately, she tugs the bow free.

She's never been more terrified, as her robe slides away and pools where she stands, a heap of midnight cloth and glittering beads left behind on the paving stones as she takes another step forward. Not of him, not of _this_ \- she's never been more certain of anything in her life, than of sharing her body with the man who makes a strangled noise behind her, shocked and breathless and full of pure _awe_ , a fury of want and wonder that sends a jolt of heat straight to her core.

No, she's not scared of him, or what might change between them tonight; but oh, Maker, she's terrified of what might _not_. She stands before him more vulnerable than she's ever been, clad in nothing but the blindfold and starlight; ready to share her own broken pieces with him, all her trembling insecurities laid to rest at his feet.

 _Maker_ , if she gives him that, and he remains a stranger....

She swallows her doubt away, and pauses at the door to her room, feeling for the doorjamb with a trembling hand. She can hear him, still on his knees behind her, breathless with reverence and need; and she speaks without turning back:

" _All_ of you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, you guys. [inner-muse](http://inner-muse.tumblr.com/) has created artwork for this chapter and I can't stop staring at it. [Please go take a look,](http://inner-muse.tumblr.com/post/151498427400/ladydanya-um-hello-i-drew-some-fanart-for-the) and be sure to heap lots of well-deserved love on the artist while you're there! ❤️


	12. Chapter 12

If he's pressed to truly think about it, for one of those ridiculous personality tests that are all the rage in Orlais, the ones that Josephine delights in handing out among the advisors for no apparent reason but to waste his time, Cullen can find but a single positive thing to say for himself: he endures.

He's borne so much in such a short span of years. The horrors of Kinloch, of torture and demons. The nightmare that was Kirkwall in the end, red fire and ruin. The desperate, pulse-pounding flight from Haven. The ongoing torment of withdrawal. By the grace of the Maker, he's always managed to persevere somehow.

How strange, then, to have endured so much in his lifetime, only to be ended by this. By such a simple thing. A single tug of a sash. The yielding of cloth. Just that, and his entire world upends—utterly, irrevocably laid to ruin.

The shock of it hits his body far before his brain. His mind stutters to a halt like the gears of an old dwarven clock that has gone too long unwound, and for a long moment he's left gaping dumbly, unable to process what is happening. He can scarcely comprehend what she has done, and what it means. What she's asking for.

But when it sinks in at last, it hits him like a druffalo stampede—violent, visceral, shattering. It knocks the air from his lungs and drives an inhuman sound from his throat. His heart batters itself like a trapped bird within his chest, thrashing at the confines of its cage, shrieking a pulse into his ears.

In his bed alone, Cullen will replay this scene a million times, like a favorite passage from a well-loved book; and like a page from a book that grows tattered and worn from endless re-reading, the memory will lose its cohesion until nothing but flashes remain, smudged phrases on a crumpled page. The stardust glitter of cascading beads. The soft clink of the robe hitting the paving stones. The sudden glow of moonlight on silver-pale skin. The shape of her, an impression of graceful limbs and supple parts that, in the shock of this first moment, never coalesce into a whole. Even in memory it is too much to take in all at once; she's like a goddess from the old stories, who cannot be fully gazed upon by mortal eyes.

He will look upon this moment so fondly someday, after the edges of reality have been worn smooth by time, leaving something softer and safer behind for him to cherish.

But in the moment, it destroys him.

It's too much; _she's_ too much. Even clothed in her robe—if he could even consider her _clothed_ , with so much radiant, moon-sugared skin on display to tantalize and tempt him—she was overwhelming. From the moment he stepped out onto her balcony and saw her, shining brighter than any of the stars that bow low in their sky overhead like a court in adoring worship of their queen, he's been consumed by her. Obsessed.

He's always found it such a struggle to keep his desires tightly leashed, to act the gentleman dragonslayer rather than the dragon itself, but _tonight_ ... Maker, tonight it is an agony. It's tortured him all night, this wild desire to throw every scrap of caution that he's ever wielded as a shield before her, every ounce of decency that he's ever driven like a wedge between them, into the wind and watch it scatter as far and wide as the stars in their midnight sky. To sweep her off her feet and carry her inside, to spend the night lost in her, consequences be damned. It's been a torment to try to divorce himself from the thoughts of bare skin and body heat, of tangled limbs and sweat-damp sheets that wheel through his mind, to focus on serving _her_ and not his own selfish, selfish wants.

 _Maker_ , he wants her. He wants her so much that he's almost, _almost_ , forgotten why he _shouldn't_. Why he _can't._

A part of his mind howls at him to retreat, that old soldier's instinct to pull back from a battle he has no chance of winning. To withdraw to the safety of his quarters to try to still his hammering pulse and sift through his whirling thoughts, to process and attempt to make sense of what has already happened tonight, the lines that have already been crossed. She's wanted more tonight than he's ever allowed her, and _Maker_ , he'd been so utterly torn between the desire to please his lady and the abject terror that he wouldn't be able to give her _that_ and not take more, and more, and more; he has never trusted himself to find _any_ pleasure in her body and not be pulled down into his own desires like quicksand, his _want_ a bottomless mire he will never escape. The press of her body still burns like a brand on his skin from shoulder to thigh, her curves filling the aching spaces of his body so well that it is impossible not to see the hand of the Maker in the shape of her, in the way they fit together. He can still feel the agonizing shift of her body against his, soft against hard, and the sweet, terrifying promise bound in those pliant, yielding hips ... and he _allowed_ himself to follow those hips straight into the mire, like the damned besotted fool that he is, not realizing until far too late that he was being drawn toward—toward _this_. Toward _more_.

 _Run_ , his gut screams, even as his muscles tremble against the paving stones beneath him, far too weak to bear his weight.

He's pinned helpless on his knees, unable to move, to speak, to _breathe_ ; all he can do is watch, utterly transfixed, as his lady takes a step toward the door. He tries to tell himself he has no right to stare at her unclothed body; he shouldn't look, he _shouldn't_ , but Maker forgive him, he cannot help himself. He's gutted by the way her body moves, by the elegant line of her leg as it extends, the flex of her calf as she gracefully toes her way around the pool of fabric on the ground, the shift of her thigh—oh, _Maker_ , he almost cannot bear the sight of her, any more than he can bear to look away.

 _This isn't right_ , his mind howls at him as his lady takes another swaying step, and another. _Run._ He wonders if it would horrify her to know that _he_ was gazing upon the starlit altar of her body like the thief that he is; he knows with a roaring certainty that this is something that he _, Cullen,_ was never supposed to see. This moment was a gift for her Dragonslayer alone; it was never meant for the likes of _him_.

It's strange, but he's dreamed of this moment so often, in the solitary safety of his room. Dreamed of this a million ways, in a million fantasies, all wildly different and yet always leading _here_ : his lady laid bare and blushing—whether by her hand, or his, or by magical accident or interrupted bath or anything else his imagination might conjure to seduce himself in the small lonely hours of the night. A million times she's stood before him this way, bare-skinned and beguiling, and somehow always, _always,_ willing and wanting. Yet he's never realized that the reality of it would be so ... Maker, so _devastating_. How did he fail to realize how hard it would be to look, how difficult to breathe, how impossible to find order among the chaos of his thoughts? Because, Maker help him, no matter how often he's let this fantasy unravel as he drifts, alone and yearning, off to sleep at night, he's never imagined it quite like ... _this_.

He's never imagined that _he_ , as he is, flawed and broken and _real_ and lacking, would be unwelcome here, an unwanted stranger spying on his own love scene.

 _Run_ , his pulse roars.

But he stays transfixed on his knees, unable to flee as time unspools around him, fragmenting as in a dream. Every thundering beat of his heart seems to span its own eternity, and in the spaces that lie between, new images imprint on his stuttering brain like the pictures in the clever flip-book his sisters made for his name-day one year as a boy, each hand-drawn moment arrested in time on its page. Her dark hair, moon-rimed to a soft purple, spilling like wine between the brackets of her shoulder blades, the tips of it curling against the dimples at the small of her back. The freckles that dance on her shoulders, stark against moon-pale flesh, like the night sky in negative. The moment passes in pictures and pieces, and he tries to gather each one like he's chasing scattered papers in a windstorm, the pages slipping from his fingers and spiraling away.

 _Run_. The word hammers at him like the relentless strike of blades on a battlefield; he feels dizzy, battle-sick.

It's nearly painful to look upon her, while the heat of her body, the memory of how she felt pressed against him, still blazes on his skin and burns taut in his belly. His attention advances frame by frame, mesmerized by the elegantly sculpted line of her arm, the grace of lean muscle as she reaches to steady herself against the doorframe, pausing to speak a few words that are nearly lost to the roaring in his ears. The dip of her waist where it yields to the flare of her hip. The perfect, _perfect_ swell of her bottom. And oh, _oh,_ the way those curves shift and round as she saunters through the door and into the bedroom beyond, sex written in every line of her body, etched in every sinuous curve....

 _All of you_. It could mean his body ... or it could mean so much more. One of those things he could give her; the other he can't, no matter how badly he wishes to.

But Maker's _fucking_ breath, how he wants her.

He's vaguely aware of having made a noise somewhere in the back of his throat, and it doesn't occur to him to worry whether the sound is dragonslayer, or dragon; he's too far gone to notice. In the moment, he forgets.

In the moment, in fact, he forgets a lot of things.

How to think, how to breathe. He forgets the bite of the cold stone beneath his knees. He forgets the stars that glitter in their Fade-bright sky. He forgets which side he's supposed to be on, in the war that rages in his veins, between the need to _run_ , and the need to run _to her_. All he can focus on is his lady, the sway of her hips, the glow of bare skin painted pearl-perfect in the soft moonlight.

And for a moment, _for a moment_ , he forgets that his lady isn't truly _his_.

He staggers to his feet, and takes one trembling step toward her.

 _Another,_ pulse soaring eagle-swift, shrieking a fury in his ears.

 _Another,_ hands fist-tight and shaking at his sides.

 _Another,_ and he's across her threshold, without quite meaning to be. He can't recall the steps he took to get there, any more than he's conscious of closing the door against the cold behind him. He's simply there, as if he's been drawn toward this, toward _her,_ from the moment he turned the first page of Varric's book, his fate ordained in cheap parchment and sealed in printer's ink.

Outside, the world was bound in silver and frost; within, the fire paints the room a thousand shades of gold. He watches, fascinated, as his lady crosses before the hearth, her skin suddenly gone golden in the maple firelight, a drama of light and shadow that deepens her curves and makes her look like she's been dipped in warm honey. _Maker,_ how he aches to test and taste that glorious skin, to lick and tease until he's memorized every inch. To _feel_ it, pressed against his own, all that beguiling, fire-tipped skin soaking in his body heat until she feels every bit as golden and radiant as she looks. He could take all night in warming her, in slowly chasing away all the cold that his hands had failed in their quest to stave away on the balcony, one lazy shift of his body at a time.

He's almost sent to his knees again by the idea that he _can._ That she _wants_ him to. That she's offered herself up freely, for him to worship in all the ways he's only ever dared to dream of in the safety of his own quarters. That he would let her down by offering anything less in return. The idea overwhelms him, until he has to press his hands to his temples and fight to draw each trembling breath. _Maker_. Oh, Maker, what is he _doing?_

 _He needs to leave._ To make his apologies to his lady and return to his quarters until he can trust himself again. In all his years of command, no course of action has ever been more certain than this.

But she reaches the bed and settles delicately on the edge of the mattress, and her hand shakes as it pats a soft invitation against the turned-down sheets. There's a soft, hopeful turn to her mouth that he recognizes with a pang, an almost-smile, poised ready to slip into the real thing, or to desperately mask disappointment, depending on what he does next. It occurs to him how makerfucking _courageous_ she's been tonight, and how he's left her turning on the edge of a blade, waiting on an answer that he's not sure he can give. And Maker, _Maker_ , he only knows that he would sooner throw himself from the parapets than to watch the set of her lips slide into something trembling and brave as she pretends not to be crushed by his rejection.

His lady needs him. And in the end, all he really is, all he _ever_ really has been or will be, is a soldier willing to throw his life away upon the orders of his betters.

Wordlessly, breathlessly, he follows.

He nears the edge of her bed, and reaches carefully for her knees, a barely-there touch on each as he gently parts them so he can kneel between them, a supplicant before his queen. _My lady_ , he tries to say, but his throat seems incapable of forming sound. For a long moment all he can do is look up at her in wonder, fingertips resting chastely on her kneecaps, his breath arrested in his lungs.

He's been this near to her so many times now, yet something about this moment feels so full of awe, so _new_ , in a way that even his proximity to her bare body cannot fully explain. She sits elegantly, slightly bent forward as if drawn into his orbit as surely as he is to hers, her hair spilling over her shoulders in fire-bronzed waves, and he gazes up at her, utterly rapt. If it weren't for the slip of black silk that obscures her beautiful face, he'd be staring straight into her eyes; even hidden by the blindfold, the set of her gaze looks so soft, and so ... so _trusting,_ full of a longing to match his own, a _want_ that makes his heart clench. Maker, how in the world does he ever deserve such faith?

The ties of the blindfold trail down one slender shoulder, and he reaches impulsively to touch the cloth, catching the ends between his fingers. For one dizzying moment he's overwhelmed by the fierce desire to simply _tug_ , just as she did with the sash of her robe, to reveal himself with the same courage and conviction that she revealed herself to him.

His hand drops away as if it's been burned. _Maker_ , what is he _thinking?_

Panic sears its way along his veins as he feels himself, _again,_ spinning out of control. This entire evening has been ... profoundly terrifying to a man like Cullen, if he's honest. _This_ , this midnight thing, this insane whim of his that she's somehow always been willing to go along with, has always hinged on the necessary fact that he remains utterly in control. In control of himself, of his voice, of his emotions; in meticulous control of everything he says and does in her presence, both by midnight and by daylight. In control of when they meet, and what happens in those midnight spaces—that control has always been his one saving grace, his lifeline through these fragile late-night hours. And tonight—oh, Maker, _tonight,_ she has unraveled that control as easily as a child plucking at a loose thread in a sweater, until he's so hopelessly shaken that he just almost ... _almost_....

 _Maker_ , he shouldn't be here. It's too much; all of this is too much. This ... this isn't what he bargained for, when he entered her rooms tonight. He'd counted on something simple, something _safe_ , pleasuring her by candlelight as he always does, gifting her with soft comfort with no more expectation of reward for himself than the joy of listening to the sounds she makes as she unravels, of feeling the warmth of her skin through his gloves. He'd meant to share the shortbread he'd packed in his basket, chasing stray crumbs with his tongue, and letting the night progress from there along familiar, well-worn lines.

He wasn't counting on her breaking the rules, all the safe, _safe_ plans he'd had for the night cast aside like so much beaded cloth.

But ... when did _she_ ever agree to those rules? Those rules that he'd put in place in his own mind, to protect himself? He'd just expected her to accept what he offered her and be content, without ever wanting or needing _more_.

Oh, _Maker_ , he's a fool.

"My lady," he tries again, and is rewarded with actual audible words this time, a husky murmur as he lifts a trembling hand to reach for her. He could touch any of the curves that she's revealed to him, the plush breasts that sway softly as she shifts, but when his touch finally does light upon her skin, it's her face, his fingertips softly grazing her cheek as they sweep up to brush a stray strand of hair behind her ear. His glove brushes the edge of the blindfold, and _Maker_ , he'd give more than his life is worth to be able to see eyes the color of an afternoon sky shine back at him, to seek and find the answers he needs written there. He swallows thickly as he lets his fingers trace down her neck and softly tilt her jaw—tender, familiar touches. He hopes she understands the message he's trying to convey, as he arches up to close the small distance between their lips, pressing his mouth to hers in a slow, chaste kiss—of respect before lust, of affection and devotion.

Whatever else happens tonight, he prays she knows that he's always only meant well.

He's rather surprised when she doesn't press at once for more; instead of urging him onward, she seems content to lean into his slow kisses, one of her hands reaching out blindly to brace for balance against his chest. Her fingers catch delicately in the collar of his shirt, then slip beneath the fabric, and the brush of her hand against his bare skin is a shock; it's difficult not to flinch away, for reasons that have little to do with the chill of her fingers. He forces himself to remain still, betrayed only by the racing of his heart beneath her questing fingertips, and ... for once, simply permits her to touch where she will. It's such a strange extravagance, to let his guard down and simply yield, to sink into the sensation of soft skin dragging against his own instead of fighting it and pushing her hand away.

Her thumb sweeps the arc of his collarbone, sending an electric shiver in its wake, then dips lower, tentative against the muscled expanse of his chest. His lungs stall, as if his body is reluctant to disrupt the spell she's weaving with something as mundane as breathing, and when his lips forget their orders and grow still, hers are there to take the reins, moving sweetly against his. These gestures seem almost shockingly shy, after how bold she's been in everything else tonight—in how bold they've _both_ been—yet there is such awe in these tiny gestures, new and infinitely exquisite. It feels right that they move through these strange waters with the same amazement and reverence that they've navigated the months-long path that's led them here, savoring the wonder of discovery.

His brain barely registers her other hand as it toys with the hem of his shirt; he's startled, then, when her fingers brush against the bare skin of his waist. The touch shocks his lungs back to action; he stutters a gasping breath against her lips, and she pauses. He feels her hand detangle itself from the fabric of his collar; then, with exquisite care, her knuckles trace the line of his jaw—there, but no further, as if she's deliberately showing him that she'll respect the identity-preserving boundaries he's set on past nights. His eyes flutter closed; how odd and wondrous it feels, to be touched this way, to submit to the same slow caresses that he's showered upon her on each of their shared midnights, as if they have come full circle at last. Is this how she felt, in all those still moments where he sat rapt and fascinated, memorizing the feel of her beneath his gloves? Trembling, aching ... effervescent, as if he is suddenly far too much to be contained by his own skin, merely from the simple graze of a hand against his face? For the first time he begins to truly understand what he has given her, in all those midnights past. And when she tugs softly at the hem of his shirt and murmurs a gentle "Please?" against his lips, he's far too weak a man to not want more. He answers with a simple nod pressed to her forehead, not trusting his voice, not even certain of what he's agreeing to, or exactly what he wants; oh, Maker, he simply _wants_.

Both her hands slip under his shirt, cool palms skimming his lower back, and he's deafened by the violent thunder of his own pulse rushing in his ears. She draws the fabric higher, and he swallows down his emotion and does the hardest thing a military man can do; he sits quietly, lifting his arms but offering no other help as she tugs the shirt up over the curve of his shoulders, inaction in the face of a foe's advance. It's strange to think of her that way, but they've never truly been equals here, in this space; by midnight she has always been a strange mix of superior officer whose approval he desperately aches to win, and adversary who he's endlessly focused on outwitting for his own survival's sake. But finally, as his curls shake free from the collar of his shirt and he sucks in a shivering breath against the slight chill of the room on his bare back, he permits himself to settle on the same level of the playing field, to occupy a space beside her. What an unfamiliar luxury, as she drops his shirt aside and trails her fingers along the slope of each shoulder until her hands meet at the back of his neck; how strange, to disengage the part of his soldier's brain that is always on guard, endlessly calculating the risks he faces here, and simply permit himself to _feel_ the velvet newness of her touch.

He shudders as she leans closer still, her fingertips teasing their way down his spine with an exquisite slowness—his own tactics turned against him, how utterly _rude_ —and a lock of her hair grazes his chest. He's shirtless on the training field on a near-daily basis, yet the lack of a shirt now feels much like the loss of a shield during battle ... Maker, she can't even see him, yet he's never felt half so exposed. He clings to what's familiar, in the face of this strange onslaught, and presses his lips to hers, resuming the kiss that was broken by his disrobement. For a long moment he drifts there, her strange and exhilarating touch as she explores the muscles of his back tempered by the familiar comfort of breathless kisses, eased into bonelessness by slow degrees, until she leans too far into his kiss and topples forward. He catches her, and a strangled noise that sounds something like a nug caught in a stray lightning spell wrenches from his lungs, because sweet fucking _Maker_ , that initial moment of skin-on-skin contact as she spills into his arms is _indescribably_ good. The press and glide of her bare chest against his own feels like slipping into a hot bath, a sudden rush of both exhilaration and ease; he wants to immerse himself in it, to drown in the comfort of silken skin and body heat.

He slips his arms under her thighs and lifts her as he stands, gathers her even closer, and Maker, _Maker_ , the press of firm breasts against his chest nearly ends him on the spot, with nothing between them to keep him from feeling the taut buds of her nipples graze his skin; _oh_ , but this woman seems determined to be the death of him tonight. He means to lay her out like an offering among the unmade sheets, but her legs are suddenly wrapped around his waist, hands clutching his shoulders like she's clinging to a capsized lifeboat, and he follows her down onto the mattress, sprawling atop her. And _Maker_ , if that isn't a shock too, to feel her beneath him, flesh and bone, squirming and solid and _real_ , after so many nights of moving against his own empty sheets, trying to imagine her there. He's overcome, overwhelmed, and for a long while he's content just to lie there, one gloved hand fisted in her hair to keep it from trembling, the other keeping him propped up at the elbow just enough to keep from crushing her as he buries his face in the crook of her neck. Sweet Maker, this is somehow actually happening; he's in bed with her, _on_ her, pressing open-mouthed kisses to her throat, with somehow fewer barriers between them, now, than the simple loss of a shirt can account for.

And _oh_ , Maker, his lady's hands are on him, drifting like a bard teasing a lazy tune from an instrument, tracing the knobs of his spine slowly, _slowly_ , from the small of his back to the nape of his neck, then back again. She's strangely restrained, as if she's afraid the privilege will be revoked if she isn't exquisitely cautious in her touches, and the result is electrifying, a pleasure that draws emotion from a well so deep within him that he'd almost forgotten it was there. This sort of soft comfort, touches that speak of approval and fondness and _home_ , was lost to him so long ago ... Maker, he's not certain he's had so much as a hand to ruffle his hair since the day he left for Templar training. He'd never dared hope to find such a thing again; and while he could have sought out a willing partner in the years since, nothing he might have found in the seedy, hurried trysts that were a soldier's sole subsistence would have been ... _Maker_ , would have been anything like _this_ , so full of gentle affirmation, as if he is wanted and accepted here, just as he is. This ... _this_ , with her, is something new and astonishing and so perfectly tender that he feels he might shatter to dust merely from the soft weight of her hands on his back; and while he knows it isn't real, maybe ... _maybe_... tonight, he, the man he pretends to be, can be _enough_.

He swallows hard and shifts aside, so he can look at her; lifts a hand, to trace the line of an inner arm as it drifts into the curve of her breast. Her skin is half warmed by now, but his gloves have retained his body heat throughout, and he's more than happy to share; he sets out to methodically warm her, watching the glide of rich leather against fire-gold skin in utter fascination as he strokes down her upper arm and around the curve of her elbow. He runs his palm down her forearm, to where her hand has fallen to the bed and is gripping the sheet; catches her fingers between his, rolling warmth into them joint by joint, before moving to repeat the process, broad warm strokes and pressing palms and all the time in the world to devote to the task. He could do this forever and never tire of it, of ensuring that no inch of her feels anything less than cherished, that she feels no less than revered.

He's enthralled, too, by the mutability of her skin; how odd it seems, that no traces remain of the silver that had illuminated her so becomingly outside. It's strange, but earlier, under the stars, it seemed like the moonlight had leached indelibly into her skin, like a sunbather taking on an ethereal, silvery tan. But now she's all gold and glimmer, and he's fascinated by it, as he drags a hand along the gilt-tipped wing of her collarbone. And again she changes, a lovely blush springing up at his touch as if he were painting the color on with his gloves, an artist layering broad strokes of russet and rose onto a pristine canvas. Maker, he's so tempted, as he watches a flush of color chase his fingertips around the plump arc of an exquisite breast, to mark her flawless skin; he's never dared, as nothing he does by midnight can ever be permitted to remain under the light of day. But tonight is a different night, and ... _well_. He leans in, breath stilled in his lungs, and presses his mouth to the beautiful swell of flesh at the top of her breast; draws, just enough to bring a rose-petal mark blooming to the surface of her skin. He stares, intoxicated, his heart pounding at his own audacity, as he traces the edge of the mark with a fingertip, the shape of him lingering there over her heart.

She makes a mewling noise, and when he draws back guiltily, shoulders drawn taut with the worry that he's gone too far, she whispers, " _Maker_ , do that again;" and he's only too happy to comply.

It's far too easy to lose himself in her—in the feel of her, as he tests the weight of her breasts in the palm of each hand; in the taste of her, as he follows with his lips, sucking the salt from her skin. He forgets himself entirely as his mouth skims over her belly, pressing kisses at random to any bits of skin he deems in particular need of attention, while his hand has strayed further still, fingertips stroking softly at the cusp of her thighs. He has no idea how much time passes this way—time has been a capricious thing this entire night, stopping and starting again on its own unpredictable whims; he's merely content to sink into her, to distance himself from the _want_ that ever threatens to consume him, to distract himself among fire-bronzed curves until he is so utterly gone that the presence of her hand on his own skin catches him by surprise. He's startled by the fingers that trail down his stomach, and startled more still by the fact that he hadn't registered her touch until then, feather-light as it skims the path of golden hair that stretches downward from his navel to the band of his trousers.

 _Oh_. Oh, Maker, but of course. It isn't that he's forgotten her intent; he's just been very decidedly focused on not thinking of it at all. There's a part of him that still expects to divert the course of her determination onto a safer path tonight; a part of him that thinks he _should_. A part of him that still can't quite believe that he's even here at all, that he actually possessed both the courage and the foolishness to send her that first invitation to that first midnight meeting, let alone that they've made it here, to _this,_ to her slender fingers tangling with purpose in the laces of his pants. Maker help him; there's probably a million reasons why he shouldn't be here, allowing this to happen; a million reasons why he should be the responsible one and flee this madness, for both of their sakes. The moment he allows himself to truly think about what is happening here—the moment he allows himself to admit how very, very badly he _wants_ this to happen—he'll be utterly, irreparably lost.

But Maker, who is he kidding? He's been well and truly lost from the very moment he stepped out onto her balcony with his heart in his throat and saw her, dripping in starlight as if she'd just been caught out in a storm of it, moon-dew droplets scattering like water down the length of her robe. He'll be forever haunted by that vision of her, waiting for him looking like sex personified, almost as if she'd planned it that way. Which—of course—she _did_. Oh, Maker, she knew what she was doing, didn't she? Looking like that, engineering a way to press against his body under the guise of needing his body heat—sweet Maker, he's an absolute idiot. He's thought he was in control of what happens in these midnight spaces, but ... it's been _her_ all along, hasn't it? _Of course._ His amazing, indomitable Inquisitor; how could he have such faith in her in every other way, yet underestimate her in _this?_

She knows _exactly_ what she's doing. Who is he to tell her otherwise? There probably _are_ a million reasons why he shouldn't be doing this; but while they'll all likely come to him in the morning, right now, as she coaxes his laces free and tugs his trousers down over his hips, he suddenly can't think of a single one. His lady is certain, and he is certain of her; for now, _for now,_ little else matters.

He kicks his pants to the floor, and ... oh, _Maker_ , he's naked. He's _naked_ , in her bed, and she's naked too, wearing nothing but the soft quirk of a self-satisfied smile. _This woman_. She truly is going to be the death of him, and he can't quite bring himself to care as their bodies come together, a slide of bare skin as he presses searing kisses to her mouth, runs trembling hands down her back and over the gentle swell of her backside. Maker, _Maker_ , is this really, truly happening? He's ached for this for so long, but now that he's here it feels like he's watching it happen to someone else; he's naked in her bed, in her _arms_ , and it feels like a page from one of Varric's novels, a beautifully wrought delusion, but a delusion all the same.

His heart is pounding as if it means to batter itself free from his ribcage and abandon him entirely as he tugs her closer; he lets out a strangled groan as his cock brushes against the softness of her thigh, sending an electric jolt through his already overstrung body. Oh, _fuck_. He's so accustomed to denying his own pleasure in this space that he has no idea at all how to process what he's feeling; it overwhelms him, leaves him fighting the desire to cling to her like a distraught child in a thunderstorm, frightened by forces beyond his understanding and control. And yet ... as he rolls over onto his side and draws her even tighter against him, she's trembling like a fawn in his arms, tender and new, and ... Maker, she's just as overwhelmed, isn't she? Somehow, that realization lends him a courage he might not have found for his own sake; for her, he can be strong. For his lady, he will serve; oh, _Maker_ , he will serve.

"Are you all right, my lady?" he whispers against her temple as he dusts kisses along the top edge of the blindfold, gloved fingertips stroking the hair back from her face. It seems absurd to think that the cold was ever an issue; she feels feverish now beneath his lips, her body warm and welcoming against his own overheated skin. She's pressing into him as if she cannot get close enough, legs tangled with his, fitting the curves of her body to the hollows of his own as if trying to solve a puzzle, angling the interlocking pieces home. It's like she's trying to make up for all the time when she wasn't allowed to touch him, by touching him _everywhere_ all at once, and _oh_ , he can't bring himself to complain. She feels so damned good as she shifts against him, so comfortable and _right_ , like a perfect summer afternoon, lazy and golden, distilled into his arms.

She lets out a breathy chuckle. "Never better," she murmurs, tilting her face to invite another kiss, and he drinks reassurance from her lips. He's awed yet again by the idea that he is, in fact, offering her something of value here; that he, with his humble midnight offerings, might be leaving her better than he finds her somehow. He thinks of what he gives to the Inquisitor by day; he tries, oh Maker, _he tries_ , but he feels like he fails far more often than not. He advises, but his advice is seldom actually heeded. He trains her troops, but he's only repeating the combat skills that far better men have shown him. He's pledged his time, his labor, and even his life if needed, to this woman and her cause; yet he's always doubted what difference one flawed, uncertain man could possibly make, what he could offer her that could possibly _matter._

He never dreamed that the most profound contribution he might make could lie in simply wrapping his arms around her and holding her close; in letting his hands drift over her body, caressing and squeezing, until she's arching drunkenly into his touch. In kissing her like her lungs are the only source of air in the room; in swallowing the melody of sighs and moans that rise from her throat as his tongue strokes into her mouth and glides like velvet against her own. In running his lips along the curve of her throat; in pressing searing kisses to the hollow behind her ear until she's pleading brokenly into the crook of his neck, clutching him tight, her hands mapping the muscled planes of his back like an explorer desperate to chart a course home.

He never dreamed that the way he might serve his Inquisitor best could lie in simply worshiping her, body and soul, until she completely forgets that she's the Inquisitor at all.

He knows well enough, from all the midnights he's spent learning the art of pleasuring her, studying between her thighs like a scholar at his books, to recognize when her desire is just on the cusp of sliding into desperation, that sweet spot before teasing turns to torture. And while he's not above carrying her well past that point, not tonight—oh, Maker preserve him, _not tonight_ ; not when his own need has bordered on agony for hours. He wants her so badly, but he somehow manages to remain infinitely gentle as he slides a hand to the small of her back, and cups the swell of her bottom with the other, bracing her against him as he rolls onto his back. His shoulders end up propped up against the headboard; he gives her one last tender, yearning kiss, then eases her away until she's sitting up, straddling his thighs.

He has so many images of her filed away, but _Maker_ , this might be his favorite yet. The fire is burning low now, and her skin has gone the pale gold of old parchment, moon-soft and glowing. The dark leather of his gloves is stark against her skin as he reaches for her, and he's fascinated by the contrast as he runs his hands down her sides, thumbs teasing at the swells of her breasts as they pass. She tips her head back, her lip caught between her teeth, bed-tousled hair wreathing her like a dark coronet. The black slash of the blindfold disappears as she lifts her chin, lost to perspective, and for a moment that will remain forever frozen in memory, he can pretend it is absent entirely; can pretend that he is not a fool caught up in some dangerous and reckless folly, but simply a man in love with his lady.

"Please," she breathes. She's barely coherent, gasping out the words _need_ and _you_ and _Maker_ in various combinations, and oh, _oh_ , is this actually happening? Cullen's brain is stuttering again, stalling and skipping frames as he tilts his head back against the headboard, his eyes fixed solely on _her_ as she arches above him, frenetic with need. His pulse hammers wildly in his throat, and his hands tremble as they run along her quivering thighs, gently lining their bodies up _just so_ ; yet strangely he feels none of the hesitation he expected to feel in this moment, none of the fear.

He'd had such deep doubts when he left his old life behind for this Inquisition. How little he knew that when the moment came to give his all to his Inquisitor, he would have absolutely no doubt at all.

"As my lady wishes," he murmurs, as he lifts his hips and presses home, at last, _at last_.

And oh, sweet fucking _Maker_ , no amount of re-reading Varric's book could have truly prepared him for this moment; no mere prose could possibly have been enough to describe the feeling of being with her, under her, _in_ her, when the clench of her body around him is poetry. _Maker_ , it's all just _so much_. It's far too much for one overwhelmed, overwrought man to process to memory; this moment will forever stand apart as unforgettable, yet at the same time, he will never quite be able to remember it, either. He's left with impressions instead—the slick heat of her. The grasping shift of velvet muscle as her body opens and yields to him. Oh, _Maker_ , how could he possibly process it all, when no words exist to truly describe how makerfucking _good_ she feels, tight and clenching around him?

He's torn between the impulse to close his eyes, and the fierce _need_ to not miss a single second of this; he lands somewhere inbetween, watching his lady's reaction through heavy-lidded eyes, thoroughly entranced at the sight of her. The arch of her back, the soft curve of her throat as her head tips back, the shape of her lips as they part around the sound of a keening, needy wail—oh, _Maker_ , she's glorious. His gloves drift up to bracket her waist so he can guide her down to meet his thrust, pulling her hips flush with his own; and an inhuman sound escapes his chest, strangled and raw, as he bottoms out. _Maker_ , this is just ... oh, _fuck_. It's too much. He has to stop, he has to _stop_ , and struggle to collect himself before he loses control entirely; this is going to be over before it begins if he's not careful, and he'll be _damned_ if he leaves his lady wanting. He lays gasping against the headboard for a moment, fighting frantically to breathe, focused only on the sight of gloved fingertips indenting her pale hips, as if he would be swept to sea if not for the weight of her anchoring him to the bed.

But it's only a moment until she's squirming against him, urging him to move. He gives an experimental roll of his hips, gasping anew at the hot drag of her along his length. _Maker_ , but it's so _good_ ; her body is afternoon sunlight on his skin, spilling thick as cream through an open window, and he chases the feeling, repeating the motion, and again, simply to feel the thrum of summer that pulses through him with each stroke.

He watches in fascination as her body lifts with each shallow thrust, her breasts swaying invitingly with the movement; he's only barely aware of reaching for her, fitting his hands to the curves of her, thumbing her nipples into aching peaks as she arches to fill his palms. Oh, _Maker_. He's left feverish and shuddering after just a few short strokes, yet it's so very easy to fall under her spell, to succumb to the distraction of running his hands along her fire-lipped skin and allow his own desperate need to recede softly into the background, more promise now than danger. He traces the contours of her with his fingertips, the gentle edges where firelight and shadow meet, utterly enthralled. She's so lovely, always, _always_ , yet tonight there is something about her body that transcends, a vessel for the gods.

His next thrust is deeper, his hips arching off the bed, and oh, the _noise_ she makes; he repeats the movement just so he can hear it again, and again. He finds a rhythm this way, not quite steady, pressing into her with a lift of his hips, drawn in by the squeeze of greedy, grasping muscles, engulfed in the honey-sweet heat of her; _Maker_ , it's _so good_. She meets every thrust with a buck of her own hips, needy and frantic and not quite to pace with his own, until he realizes that she's trying to get him to move a bit faster, a bit _harder_ ; and Maker preserve him, he answers, sliding his hands around the swell of her bottom so he can guide her into each increasingly intense stroke, and _oh_ , everything simply _clicks._

 _Oh_ , fuck. If it was good before, now it's utterly indescribable; he's lost, gasping and moaning as their bodies come together in graceful alliance again and again, and if he's aware that it's all _her_ doing, he's not surprised. She makes everything _so_ _easy_ , always, and he's so damned grateful. He's content to lose himself to the rhythm of her hips, leaning in to press soft open-mouthed kisses to her breasts before resting back against the headboard so he can marvel in the wanderlust of his own hands as they trace slow paths along the topography of her skin, only to lean in again when they discover alluring new spaces that beg to be mapped with his tongue. He whispers to her how beautiful she is, how amazing, how _good_ ; oh, _Maker_ , _so_ fucking good, though he will never find the language to truly convey it, even when he isn't babbling and half-mad with pleasure. She's a golden summer day, all lazy heat and clover fields and endless skies; each thrust sends a honeybee rush through his veins, hot and thrumming with tension, and _oh_ , he has to struggle to focus on her, and not allow himself to be undone, not yet, _not yet_.

But watching her is hardly a burden; _Maker_. He's well accustomed to seeing her unraveled by passion now, but never, _never_ quite like this; she's utterly breathtaking as she rides him, rocked by the movement of his body as his hips lift her up again and again. The soft maple firelight glistens like a lather of soap on her skin, bath-wet and glittering where it catches the sheen of sweat that sweeps her breastbone or the damp of saliva on her rosebud nipples; her face is flushed, lips parted, hair tumbling around her shoulders like the churn of a storm-dark sea. Kings have spent fortunes trying to capture sights like this on canvas, and failed; sweet fucking _Maker_ she is radiant as she rises above him at the peak of every thrust, arching tall and lifting her face to the sky, his lady ascendant.

He isn't certain how long they remain that way, gasping and raw as their bodies come together again and again; time has quietly slipped from the room, leaving them their privacy. In truth it likely isn't long, but it feels eternal, each moment stretched by the weight of awe into something endless, like gold spun into thread. They are far from perfect together; he's reminded of a symphony at first practice, plagued by missed notes and flawed beats, yet they manage to produce something gorgeously lyrical all the same, for all the too-eager thrusts and ill-timed stutters of his hips. At least, _Maker_ , he hopes she agrees; he's desperate not to fail her, to serve her and give her everything, _everything_ , she needs from this night; she deserves no less than his all.

He's pressing into her by muscle memory now, rather than actual intent, fiercely focused on outlasting her. The effort reminds him of swimming; he can't help but think of his boyhood, when he would withdraw to a secluded lake near his home to train. He'd been driven by some childish despair that has never quite left him, convinced that if he could just swim one stroke more, and one more, and one more, he might someday prove himself worthy of being selected for Templar training. He sinks into that mindset now, stroke after stroke, driving into her until his thighs tremble from the effort of it and his toes clench against the sheets, aching to _deserve_ this miracle that he's somehow been given, to be worthy of his lady.

Then she tips forward into his arms, and _oh_. The angle changes, shallower and so, _so_ tight, and he lets out a strangled groan at the _feel_ of it. Maker, she truly will be the end of him as she moves against him, pressing her sweat-damp body to his heaving chest; she feels so fucking _good_ , bare and blazing against him. He slides trembling hands along her back, soothing her as he holds her to him, bracing her against his thrusts; and _Maker_ , the intimacy of it, the spill of her hair on his shoulder, the warmth of her breath as she gasps and whines into the hollow of his collarbone, leaves him utterly breathless. Pressed so tightly against her, he can feel the shudder of air in her lungs, can feel the storm-edge thrum of her heart; he's never been this close to her, in _every_ possible sense, and _Maker_ it's as terrifying as it is beautiful, his lady so raw and trusting in his arms.

She tilts her face and lays a trail of frantic kisses along his throat and jaw as she seeks out his mouth, and a broken moan escapes his lungs when she finally finds the way. Her kiss is the quicksilver rush of a healing potion on his lips, spreading hot and metallic in his belly; he sinks into it, kissing her deeply, stroking his tongue into her mouth. He's bucking his hips into her erratically now, yielding to pure impulse, a glove fisted in her hair at the back of her head to press her closer still, the other clutching at her bottom. _Maker,_ if he was swimming before, he's _drowning_ now, his lungs burning for want of air, dizzy and helpless as the world tilts and spins around him.

He knows she's close when she buries her face in the crook of his neck, hands scrabbling at his shoulders, nails digging into his flesh. Oh, _Maker_ , he's watched her come so many times now, tasted the silver and salt of her climax on his tongue again and again, but he's never _felt_ it, never like _this_. He's utterly unprepared for the way her body clenches around him, the velvet pulse of her, as she clings to him and sobs into his shoulder. Again, _again,_ she is a duality, at once grasping pressure and fluttering softness where her body grips him, and, and ... _Maker_. He lasts just a few more strokes ... another, and another, and then he's spilling inside her with a broken groan, his release taking him like the first hit of lyrium after a too-long span of rationing, soaring exhilaration wrapped in a profound relief that is both deeply physical, and something far beyond.

After ... oh, Maker, when he tries in the days to come to bring the memory of _after_ to heel, all that will come is the snap of the fire as it burns low in the grate. The distant toll of the Chantry bell, whisper-faint beyond the windows. The drip-slow slide of shadow across the ceiling as the firelight softly recedes. The spring-sweet scent of shampoo as he lies shocked and gasping into her hair.

He comes back to himself by degrees, slow and sticky as molasses. He has no idea how long it is before he realizes his hand is still clutched in her hair, and focuses all of his will on simply releasing his gloved fingers, one by one, sliding them down to stroke the nape of her sweat-slick neck. It's moments more before it occurs to him to lift his other hand to brush the tangled hair from her brow, to press his lips softly to her flushed forehead. He has no memory at all of letting that hand drift to the small of her back, but it's there, his thumb tracing slow circles against her overheated skin. He's exhausted, trembling; sweet Maker, he feels like he's been through combat, afflicted by a weakness of muscle and haziness of mind that reminds him all too well of the battle sickness that sets in at the end of a long fight, battered and weary and not yet certain of just how deep the injuries go.

How very strange it is, to feel so shattered, when he's dreamed of this very moment for so long, ached for it with all his heart. It's such an odd thing to discover, that even something so dearly desired can be completely devastating when realized at last.

She lays boneless atop him, a comforting weight in his arms, and he is content merely to hold her, easing her with soft touches and tender presses of his lips until she's no longer gasping for air and her trembling has stilled. In time, as their overheated bodies cool, he shifts, settling her properly against the pillow, and reaches for the blanket. He hesitates—he has no idea how much time has passed, between the star-frost wonders of her balcony and the fire-soft marvels of her bed, but he knows it must be very late, nearer to the warm dawn hours when Skyhold starts to stir than the cool safety of midnight; he should tuck her in and slip quietly away.

But Maker, _fuck it—_ if he did what he _should_ , he wouldn't be here at all; he pulls the blanket up around them both. Another few moments with his lady is the least of the luxuries he's taken tonight; it can do no more harm to stay ten minutes more, to let her nestle into the crook of his arm, to settle her fever-warm brow on his shoulder, to sigh sleepily into the curve of his throat. To simply hold her and lend her the heat and comfort of his body as she drifts to sleep is a poor reward for the miracles she's shared with him tonight, but it's what he can offer; he nestles into the warmth of her bed and rolls her against his side, cupping her cheek in his hand as he kisses her with infinite tenderness.

And if he watches her as she drowses there against him, running a gloved fingertip wistfully along the edge of the blindfold—if he can scarcely breathe with the ache of it, with the weight of longing for what can never be—it doesn't matter; oh, Maker preserve him, it simply _cannot_ matter.

He gentles her until she's limp and drifting against his shoulder, and he's certain she's asleep, soft-browed and lovely, breath steady and sweet against his cheek. It takes him by surprise when she speaks, then; her voice is raspy, cinnamon and smoke as she murmurs her usual question against his skin: _"Who are you?"_

His breath hangs in his lungs, throat working wordlessly; for once, whatever reply he might use to deflect her does not come. He remains too overwhelmed to speak; all he can do is hold her, quiet and still, as the dark beyond the windows begins to soften imperceptibly around the edges and the fire burns to embers in the hearth. A press of his lips to her temple, the slide of a hand along the curve of her spine, are not an answer; but tonight, as he lies watching midnight softly slip like grain from his fingers, Maker help him, they are the only answer he can give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, I'm not dead! Though this chapter certainly tried its hardest to kill me - I'm so sorry for the long, long delay. My love and thanks to all you lovely people! ❤❤❤

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me on Tumblr! [ladydanya.tumblr.com](http://ladydanya.tumblr.com)


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